The City of Slaughter
Bialik still has their measure. This is why his poem stays fresh and contemporary and needs to be read not simply as a literary artifact but as a political lesson for the present and a warning for the future. I present below a sort of hybrid version, a cross between an adaptation and a free translation, substantially abridged and focusing on the spiritual and intellectual defection of far too many Jews wherever they may be found. I have taken a few small liberties in the rendering but I believe they are warranted in the evolving context of cultural resilement among a significant element of modern Jewry. The message of the poem is no less relevant today, when the very existence of Israel is increasingly threatened and terrorist charters call for the killing of Jews, than it was in 1903 when the Zionist movement was just gaining momentum.
From The City of Slaughter:
Do not fail to note
in the dark corners of Kishinev
crouching husbands, bridegrooms, brothers
peering through the cracks of their shelters,
watching their wives, sisters, daughters
writhing beneath their bestial defilers,
suffocating in their own blood,
their flesh portioned out as booty.
And what did these watchers
cradle in their hearts?
Did they pray for a miracle:
Lord, Lord, spare my skin this day?
These are the sons of Maccabees?
The heirs of Hasmoneans
who lie in the privies and jakes and pig styes
with trembling knees,
concealed and cowering,
crammed by the scores
in all the sanctuaries of their shame?
Their pious ruses and denials are of no account,
and in the time of affliction,
on the trampled ground of the present
or on the horizon brimming with blood,
their cries, their confessions, their scourgings
will be of even less account,
fists beating against the stones.
There will be no salvation for the shamed.
And even their resignation,
their making peace with shame,
will not redeem
the cracked pillars of the synagogue
or recompose
the charred scrolls of the Sefer Torah.
For there is rot in their bones,
corruption in their hearts,
weakness in their knees,
and their bitter cry sent into the storm
of Kishinev and every Kishinev to come
shall not be heard,
not even in the porticos and corridors of heaven.
You can take the Jew out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the Jew. Is this some kind of sick Stockholm Syndrome?
Anyway, thanks for this article, it needed to be said.
Terry, the seminal work on the subject of the compliant, ghetto Jew can be found in Dr Kenneth Levin’s masterpiece, ‘The Oslo Syndrome:Delusions of a People Under Siege’.
Be that as it may, thankfully there are still many strong Zionists willing and able to defend our land, and by extension, our people.This is how it has come to pass that my own sons-after completing their educations at top US universities- joined the IDF.Many more like them, from various diaspora communities, have done the same.They understand that their fates are inextricably linked with their Israeli Zionist counterparts, requiring them to stand on the front lines when called to duty.
Not only have they-and others like them-eschewed higher pay from places such as Silicon Valley to work in Israel,but more importantly, they speak about how much they have gained by making aliyah-a sense of duty, community and infinite inner courage that they can ‘take care of business’.
At the end of the day there are courageous Jews of ALL ages who will redeem Jews worldwide from their label of cowardice. While it is flattering to be seen as a highly intellectual people, it is worthless unless the majority are willing to stand up and fight with courage.
A cowardly Jew IS a dead Jew.Simple as that.
I certainly agree with you, Adina. I don’t think the author meant the majority of Jews, certainly not the majority of Israeli Jews. But, we nonetheless have a significant minority to whom this article applies.
The desire to assimilate and succeed in a largely non-Jewish society is not comparable to the Stockholm Syndrome. It is simply the path to success. I took on a leading force in American education, Diane Silvers Ravitch, here: http://clarespark.com/2011/05/28/who-is-a-racist-now-2/. She is aligned with the most powerful “moderates” in American society.
I am enjoying all the comments here, as well as David Solway’s excellent reproach to the Court Jews.
An important piece that should be read out loud in every synagogue. The existential threat to Jewish existence comes almost as much from leftist Jews as it comes from the radical Muslims.
Usually not much in favor of the blaming the victim argument. “It’s not our fault, the Jews do it to themselves”. Really? Old wine, new skins.
This is an example of exculpation, not explanation. The underlying subtext here is that the countries that endorsed state sponsored terrorism (Spain in 1492 is another prime example) would have said “oh, sorry, never mind” if Jews had more balls? Aside from being a flawed moral argument, it’s historically not valid.
Jews lived in separate areas by fiat, not choice. They often had to wear special clothes or signs (the Nazis did not invent their wicked rules, just expanded on past ones), and were not allowed weapons (usually only nobles were- to stop all kinds of revolts, not just Jewish ones). They were set aside and made identifiable for a reason.
If Jewish men tried defense of self and other, their entire families, or towns were summarily killed. My ancestors learned the hard way not to defend, or more would be hurt. Once can only fight back when one stands a chance of bettering one’s lot. If the actions are more likely to produce more violence, including death, especially to those one loves, what is termed here as cowardice, as unpalpable as it is to our minds, was the unsavory yet necessary better part of valor.
If one is beat up, who is at fault, the agressor or the person who could not mount a proper defense? If someone is raped, who is at fault, the rapist or the victim? Our laws and courts are clear on this. But in the court of public opinion for Jews, it seems we now simultaneoulsy, strangely, seem as both agressor and complicit victim, instead of humans in an untenable situation, trying to resolve it in a way that is viable and fair to all.
I am not in favor of J street politics, either. I find most, if not all, of their policies and actions reprehensible. However, to call people who choose another, albeit flawed, path to peace such despicable names as kappos, court Jews, in effect collaborators, puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable. More, the argument in itself is inappropriate, outrageous, and wrong.
Yes, we need to fight. But not each other, and not like this.
This, I think, was meant to be a positive “wake up call”. I got woken up. Just perhaps, not in the way the author envisioned.
Dear Tevagirl
Your argument is not with me but with Bialik. Also with Theodor Herzl in his book The Jewish State and his play The New Ghetto. I know, at least vicariously, about helplessness in the face of murderous rage and overwhelming force–my great-grandfather, a noble man, was hacked to death by rampaging Muzhiks in the Ukraine as he read the Tanakh quietly at his table. And I have other stories too. Nevertheles, Bialik and Herzl–and Ze’ev Jabotinsky–were also right, for the germ of weakness and resignation infected many religious Jews. It was only later, with the growing Zionist movement and the heroic resistance of the Warsaw ghetto, that we saw the birth of the “new Jew.” But don’t deceive yourself–there are still a great number of “wicked sons,” of cowards and temporizers and collaborators among us, as David Mamet and others have eloquently deplored.
David
Besides, Tevagirl, it’s not just a Jewish failing, but a human one.
A successful strategy for an aggressor is to be especially brutal to those who dare resist. This is one way Genghis Khan conquered so much with so little loss to his own soldiers. Corpses of resisting fighters were decapitated, the skulls piled high into mounds: no ceremonial burial for enemies of the Khan! But surrender your city, and you were welcomed to the empire – they’d still help themselves to your women, though.
In warlord China, “order” was maintained by each warlord’s hired bully boys. If they found any weapons while checking your house for valuables, they’d rape, maim, and kill.
Man is a fallen creature, and we can often live longer by abandoning dignity.
Dear Mr. Solway:
I understand your points. And after reading the approx. 50 comments (sorry for the delay in response) I can see that your article struck a nerve in many places, and did what any good piece does- provoked a reasoned point/counterpoint debate.
I agree that with the statement that liberal political ideology can and often does lead to Jews aiding in their own destruction.
I just prefer to believe that even if it is misguided (to be kind), done in the wrong ways, with the wrong people, and for the wrong reasons, this behavior comes from a sense of commandedness to “tirdof tzedeck”, to pursue (what is perceived as) justice. I agree with your analysis of the problem, just not necessarily the intent behind it. Perhaps you might call me a rose-colored optimist, but there you go.
But perhaps the road to Hell truly can be paved with good intentions. And so, perhaps it is not the intent so much that one must be concerned with, but the consequences. What I am taking from this essay and from your comments is the question, how one parses out the difference, if indeed that matters, and how best to respond.
Thank you for your reply. And for your article. I hope I have understood it correctly.
T.G.
If your wife is being raped and disemboweled there really should be an expectation that you will fight even if it means your death.
If the odds are so stacked against one, the wise and compassionate one will look to flee that oppressive place before such an event explodes and we can give credit to a lot of Jews in the Ukraine and Russia for doing that.
BTW, what happened to those Russian Jews wasn’t all that much different than what happened to American Blacks in some places.
“BTW, what happened to those Russian Jews wasn’t all that much different than what happened to American Blacks in some places.”
I don’t want to go too far off subject here, as this essay need not be hijacked…but I have a short response to this.
I am a study of history (An interest not exclusive but particular to military 1928-1946).
I know my own family history back to the 1600′s, when my family came from England. They lived in what is now Canada back then, when the French and English were fighting over control on the northern part of the continent. The French starting paying the indigenous people, local Indian tribes that they traded with, for the scalps of English settlers (A practice quickly picked up by the Brits).
A group of my family came back from a hunting trip to find the family (men, women and children) scalped and disemboweled. They changed their last name (shortened it, in point of fact) to sound less British, packed up the horses and headed south.
Human cruelty isn’t isolated to skin color. It more often comes from ideology.
David: loved the piece. Thank you.
JW
There is a certain Godwin-like charge to this, but since the subject is Holocaust-like, it is nearly unavoidable. One could instead call them Quislings, or perhaps collaborators. These also carry the very same Hitlerian association.
There is no getting around the fact these appeasing (another Hitlerian reference) Jews live within the bosom of a land of Jews, and give succor and support, they aid and abet, the enemy. They promulgate the propaganda of a relentless, ruthless enemy, one who is bent upon the absolute destruction of both Israel and the Jews in that land.
Another commenter here, Dwight, in reply to another article, lamented the hard words spoken of the other side on this Conservative site. Are hard words spoken? Yes? Are they merited? Yes! It’s like the notion of negative campaign ads. They are not negative if they are true. It is just the subject matter which is so negative. There is no pleasant way to speak at length about feces, for it is, by nature, unpleasant.
There is no excuse for these blackguards who take up verbal arms against their own people, when the danger is so clear, pressing, and existential. Any Jew who speak in support of Mohammedans are traitors to their people. These are hard words, I know, but they are accurate and well-deserved.
Palin got it right when speaking to Israel. She chastised them for continually apologizing for their own existence. That was crystallizing for them, and they loved it. A few weeks later, Netanyahu took Obama to the woodshed publicly. Maybe he noticed how well Palin’s words resonated with the Israeli public. Now, he is a hero in Israel, having followed Palin’s lead. His overnight approvals jumped 13 points to 58! That’s huge! Ginormous! I hope he sends Palin a fruitbasket.
This is how it is supposed to be done. Jews, all Jews, need to stand up for Israel. Do not apologize to Muslim sympathizers. Do not bend to such PC crap.
To those who fight the second amendment of the US constitution, you should read her post. This is exactly the reason why there is a right to bear arms in the US. Europeans and many leftists often deride people here in the US for it, and yet, they engage in all sorts of attempts at thought control that is considered unnecessary and detrimental here in the US.
The right to own and use weapons for the purpose of self defense is the only defense against tyranny. If anyone can be said to understand this, it is the descendents of those who survived a genocide.
Gork: Old West saying; “G*d made Man, Sam Colt made them equal”.
The liberal Jewish antipathy to the right to keep and bear arms passeth understanding to this decidedly non-Jewish redneck. The only thing more puzzling is the Jewish penchant for big government–the Jews having suffered massively at the hands of governments throughout the ages.
“Most flaunt university and college degrees, not yehshiva parchment, and preen themselves on their sophistication and putative insights.” And many are on the left, hating Israel, hating God, and perpetuating the spread of globalism/communism/world wide tyranny and the cultural corruption of the United States and her ultimate fall from within. The loudest voices, the deepest pockets, the decades long objective to secularize, deChristianize, mutilculturalize etc. The non stop support of mass third world immigration, the constant pitting of races against each other, the Frankfurt School. On and on. And more people in this country are starting to ask why. If you wonder why anti-Semitism is on the rise the answer is staring many in the face. You hate what hates you.
Indeed. None so blind as those who WILL NOT see :named “Democrat” and “Liberal” and their troops. Most recently instumental in handing power to CHANGE the Democracies of the West – the USA and Israel – to a NEW Dark Age.
To assuage their resentment for not having received from “common people” the honours and adoration they seem to believe their righr as “intellectuals”. Their triumph some time in coming. They’ve worked assiduously in the management echelons of ALL civic institutions in the West, the Second World War their “crisis to be taken advantage of…” to undermine the social structures and agreements on which “common” people depended for civil public interactions.
Beginning with the Guns of August. Given a fillip with the Yalta Agreements.
Assertively with the apotheosis of Kennedy the First in 1960 and endgame with the New Kennedy/Messiah, B. Obama, the “first black” President of the USA – hooray. Who to gain votes had the unusual campaign promise to HOPE to CHANGE America. Proving that America had got the message. Announcing to that end that he was himself, along with his ever-loving spouse Michele “Ashamed of America”. As the Israelis are to given theirs.
American Jews bankrolled his campaign to the final triumph. And now as instrument for final civic and moral suicide of the USA, he is in cahoots with the enemies of Israel – worldwide – well on his way to the murder of that other rare beast a practicing Democracy.
And as you point out. American Jews still refuse to believe the evidence before their eyes and act upon it. Their vaunted intelligence forces them to the steepled finger assessment that perhaps the evident plan is figment of lesser intellects. Many even not jewish.
With lawyerly insight they want absolute proof. Beyond a shadow of doubt evidence already available not sufficient for them to act to save the Democracies of the West.
But them what is a Democracy, anyway ? And who says it’s a good thing?
Or perhaps American Jews reject cultural self-absorption or toeing an ethnic/religious line in favor of larger issues that include concepts of the greater good and themselves as American citizens. It has been their strength as Americans not their weakness.
“…perhaps American Jews reject cultural self-absorption or toeing an ethnic/religious line[???????] in favor of larger issues that include concepts of the greater good and themselves as American citizens.”
Would these concepts include helping Brazil exploit its oil reserves while hindering America from doing so? Would these include turning the government into the pseudo-charity it has become. Would these concepts include the government forcing banks to make bad mortgage loans[see Dodd, Frank, et al] to those unable/unwilling to pay them off, thereby causing the recession that seems to be unending. Would these include taking sides against Israel? One wonders.
American Jews voted Democrat in great numbers all through the Democrats’ Jim Crow regime. They were also huge proponents of the left-wing segregated labor unions that kept blacks in boy-jobs, like bus-boy, bell-boy, and shoe-shine-boy.
Conscience, schmonscience.
American Jews vote Democrat because they won’t be shaken from the lie that pogroms come only from the Right, so they vote Left and rationalize.
So you’re going to vote based on the danger of a potential pogrom in the United States?
What are you, nuts?
“When you’re ironic…people think you’re…thinking deep thoughts.”
Concepts of the “greater good”. Which ? greater good would that be?
The one that stops people from voting for Presidents to the tune of 95% by skin color.
If we all did that type of thing instead of seeing ourselves as Americans where would that leave us?
If you want to vote by last names and skin knock yourself out. Let the adults tackle actual issues that affect everyone.
95%?! Wow, sounds serious.
So did you get your donation into Planned Parenthood yet, Mr. Party of Eugenics? Remember, the best way to prevent a mugging in 15 years is to fund an “inner city” abortion today!
I’m still trying to figure out what cheerleaders have to do with all this.
How much do we know about people “voting” for persons according to skin colour, etc ? The vote is “secret” isn’t it? In addition, it’s no secret that people even in the USA, generally vote along “tribal” lines. Today particulary encouraged in both/all political groups in patterning their appeals to “Hispano-Americans,”Black-Americans, “Muslim-Americans, etc.
We get information generally from interested parties’ assessments based on what often appear to be anti-democratic principles. Whatever words mean, it can be no accident that they, in the main, identify themselves as “liberal/socialist”. Arguing their ends putatively based on “democratic principles”, e.g. attacks on one specific religion for many decades,and of course their most effective ploy of censorship under their euphemism “political correctness” making people unsafe if voicing “unacceptable” words or opinions.
Their actions deteriorating the working democracies, and the rights of the citizens in them, into something quite different. Evident with the daily behaviours of those at the helm of the nation today. Always of course for your own good.
While Jewish Americans were not alone in dividing citizens from one another via their vaunted “equality” laws, e.g. race and “gender”, they were part of the program. The “equality” Laws were redundant, as the Constitution of the USA includes as RIGHT such for all citizens. So instead of forcing Constitiutional Amendments and Laws based on spurious grounds onto the Civil/Criminal Code they might instead have battled for indidivual cases unlawfully penalised for skin colour, sex, religious OR political beliefs.
Consistent with the ethos of the USA based in Rights of Individuals NOT groups.
The erstwhile ACLU did just that without concern for skin colour, sex, religious OR political belief or association. Before the “revolutionaries of the 1960s” insinuated into the control/ management echelons of that ACLU, as they did also into education, propaganda and entertainment groups in the USA.
The ACLU just one example of the deterioration of the American ethoc and practices. NOT of course perfect but citizens willing to correct their errors. Often at great cost in treasury and blood.
David, your descriptives are fabulous — and more than accurate. Thanks.
“timorous conciliators, Court Jews, kapos, revisionist historians, UN apparatchiks, Palestinian water-carriers, trimmers and delinquents”
Would that only they would “saunter cheerfully toward the abattoir”.
But it never works that way, does it?
There are as many degrees to evil as there are circles in Dante’s hell. Collaboration for cowardice is not as nearly evil as collaboration for personal gain. How many careerist Jews can we name who collaborate in anti-Semitism for a leg up the greasy pole?
The name Goldstone comes immediately to mind. Michael Lerner, a failed lefty opportunist, reinvented himself as “rabbi” and created the “Tikkun Olam” became a friend of Bill and Hillary and married rich. (“Tikkun Olam” translates literally “Repair of the World” and more accurately to “Social Engineering.”) Then there are the Jewish American diplomats shilling for an Arabist State Department pressing Israel to make suicidal concessions in a phony “peace process.”
I’m happy to learn that lists of names are being assembled and published . This filth needs to be dragged out into the good old American sunshine. Better to wash our dirty laundry in public than to walk around in stinking rags.
and one more of that type…Thomas Friedman of the NYTIMES…gives me the creepies..
paarl of Rhodesia
My father’s side of the family is German Jewish. His own father went back to Germany in the 30s to plead with his family to leave. Some did, those that did not perished in the camps. A great book called “My german Question” examines the very issue of Jews who neother fled nor fought. It is a cautionaty tale about faith in authority just because it is the ‘legitimate authority’.
I doesn’t seem to matter what we Jews do, we’ll always be vilified. In the pre-Israel days we were thought of as weak and cowardly, and it was our fault that we were killed because after all we went “like sheep to the slaughter”.
In spite of that remarkable poem, I think this is slander. We were powerless, no country, no weapons, no IDF to the rescue. What exactly were we suppose to do? And don’t tell me that husband’s weren’t butchered trying to protect their families because I don’t believe it!
Well, now, no one can say that we go like sheep! But we’re still vilified – you know all the slanders these days, so I won’t repeat them.
Much much better to be vilified because we’re strong, than the way it was before we recreated and rebuilt our state.
I was imagining violin music and sad clowns down by a river when I read that.
Hmm. Now, did you imagine all this in black & white, or was it in color? (Take your time…it’s important.)
I imagined it while crying down by the river while writing a poem about the Armenian genocide. Then I suddenly realized I wasn’t Armenian and forgot the entire thing in favor of the local sports page.
Wonderfully said, David.
I do feel pity for those cowering in cellars, saving their mortal bodies while their women were being savaged.
But, what pity should I feel for those who lead the savagery from the front? Chomsky? Soros? The NY Times?
Has the history of hatred and rage caused the wiring in their brains to short circuit honor? Do they bow, scrape, scuffle and crawl…by being first in line to savage their own bloodlines? Is this a political Parkinson’s Disease, where the trembling becomes so uncontrolled it collapses onto itself and destroys from within?
How can one explain the violence done by currying favor with one’s tormentors, by being the standard bearer for their hatred and slander?
Leftist Jews are the New Millenium’s Uncle Tom. They deny themselves of their race in order to grovel for acceptance and approval of those who despise them.
Like a flesh eating disease of the soul, it devours from the inside, all the integrity, honor, loyalty and pride made necrotic, septic and vile.
Others may point at it, but who but a Horowitz, a Simon, a Radosh, a Mamet, a Solway could make the point stick. The poor souls in the cellar aren’t the real cowards in the story. They did not champion the hatred and therein lies all the difference.
There have been a few comments here about not fighting if you have no chance to win. Perhaps a better way to look at it is if you are going to loose make it cost the winner as much as possible, or maybe just fight because it is the more honorable way to be defeated. The Jews in Warsaw fought, I think knowing that they couldn’t win yet unwilling to submit. They cost the Germans time, money and lives. Who knows how many other Jews lived because of their actions. If more European Jews fought and killed one German soldier for every 10, 20 or even 100 Jews put in the ovens more Jews may have survived that war. The willingness to fight should not be weighed against the odds of winning but should be decided by what is honorable, or right.
Honest(seldom) Jewish article! Jewish pogroms in Russia during the civil war have cost tents of thousands of Jewish lives according “the Jewish chronicle” of 1918y.
This victimes of Russian history where seldom mentioned by leftist Jews in Israel.
The fear of Russia,I think created the title of well-known book: “Burned by Russia” that is quite loyal to the country.Condemning Obama`s policy toward ISRAEL we seldom mention his Jewish supporters.
F.M you are right! The logic of fight of resistance is not the arithmetics! The resistance of the dieing is the base of the nation! The heroic uprisings of the Jews against the Romans have created the Jewish Diasphora (Hellenized Jews have dissapeared) and have become the Israel`s base.
My grandfather, at age 15, was put on a ship bound for America by his parents just a months after the pogrom at Kishinev. Thank you for bringing it up. Never again must this type of violence against Jews be allowed to happen. I hope my fellow Jews will wake up this coming election season.
Just so happens when I was looking for more and more Bibi footage, because I’ve been crushing on him since he took Obama out to the woodshed, put him through the chipper, took the chips out ,turned them back into paper and then put the paper through the shredder I came across this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj6T9-8k8Do
Never again, you don’t say never again, you say again
Very god illustration of this essay.
9. Diana
No one said that ALL husbands hid. You cannot believe that there were no knives or clubs available. Since Roman before the Romans Jews have stood and fought, sometimes knowing they could not win. The point is that even if you know you cannot win, sometimes you must fight anyway. You never know you could get lucky. Live is good but sometimes there are things more important than life. I am not Jewish, but all of my 60 plus years I have known Jews that I liked and respected, but I could never understand why SOME of them has a almost psychotic fear of learning how to use weapons. Being civilized and basically a good person does not mean you should not kill to save your self or family from barbarians. In my mind when a JDF soldier shoots a 15 year old Arab with a bomb is a better man than some educated Jew decries the Israelis on the floor of the UN for such an act. Judaism is the basis of most Western religion and to a large extent civilization in Europe and the Americas that alone makes it worth fighting for.
David Solway is a “Court Jew” himself having lived off govt. poetry grants since his mid-20s (he is now approaching 80). As he has often called for the mass extermination of the people he calls “filthy shvatz goyim” (i.e. The Palestinians) – one has to be skeptical of his account of this alleged 1903 pogrom.
Dear Al
Where do you get this nonsense? Wrong on every count.
D.
Oh, Al, . . . Al Irwin,
I kind of get the feeling then, that, if I apply for foodstamps, I have shamed myself and my nation?
While in a general way, I’m against our own “endowments for the arts” grants—and, not here and now to lay open reasons—without reasoning, but merely to say that, some one is in some nondescript way reprehensible because his nation makes “endowments for the arts” grants, and some one has applied for and made use of that nation’s grant system, is, I think, to have broached a thing which would have to be fleshed out.
And to complete in the same vein, nor does logic require skepticism of me, simply upon a bald aspersion, . . .
And as you inject the Pals, tell us why Jordan first wished to assist them but then, put them out; and tell us something about why the Pals felt that, destruction of beautiful Lebanon was the thing to do—say something about how the Pals ended up where they now are. And tell us whether you think that, with an open border into Egypt, there will be larger and more rockets, or no, . . .
And if you say that, the Pals should use rockets, I’ll say that, engagement to conquest properly commenced, Israel should respond to such extent that, the Pals, rethink their drink before a second shot, . . .
Al Irwin:
I read Solway regularly and I don’t know anything about him personally. However, a “court Jew” by definition is well known by Gentile and Jew alike. Solway may be a wife-beater and a child molester but a “court Jew” he is not else everyone would know it. Solway is also careful with words and his spelling “shvartz” as “shvatz” is unlikely. Nor is it likely, considering what I have read by him, that Solway would stoop to so crude a phrase as “filthy shatz goyim”. Finally, the notion that “filthy shatz goyim” translates to “Palestinians” is a hoot. If you are going to slander your betters in Yiddish, Al, you need to climb out of the gutter and learn the language.
Dear Al
Where do you get this nonsense? Wrong on every count.
D.
Discussion of Jewish resistance rise the storm as always.Spiritualizing helplessness and cowardice of the victims on the one hand ,Stockholm Syndrom of the most selfish and unstable and as the result the accusations of Israelis`cruelty.That is the betrayal! This must be discussed openly! Thanks to the author.
Sometime during the Spring or Summer of 1984 Binyamin Netanyahu entered into a passenger elevator I was riding in an Manhattan office building. The air bristled upon his entrance. Mr. Netanyahu was a familiar face to probably most New Yorkers (who watched the news) due to his appointment as the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, and also his well known “take no prisoners” tone of advocacy for the Israeli state. Back in the 1980′s local New York television was enthusiastically in the corner of Israel. Today, the hot water tap has gone cold. Mr. Netanyahu provided “good TV” for 6PM newscast with his tough boxer like demeanor and like a tough boxer he often led with his chin but this was no glass jaw sissy type of Jew. This one would hit you back. Hard. Some people don’t like it when a Jew hits back hard. They get frightened. People ask stupid questions, like “why does he have to hit back so hard? Thanks for the poem.
Yeah and black folks say white folks don’t like it when they stand up for themselves and this bigoted projection onto faceless and nameless people goes on and on.
Did it ever occur to you that not a single person in the world thinks like that? Why externalize your low self esteem onto others? If you’ve got the name of such a bigot then call him out. In the meantime I have your name and I’m calling you out.
Yeah! And once he finds “hallmonitor” in the phone book, he’s gonna call your house and do some heavy breathing, to boot!
I imagined even more sad clowns and violins down by “Self-Aborption River” when I read that and the wind making music by blowing through your head like a kazoo.
Let’s see, my head would have to be hollow for wind to blow through it, so that’s funny. But why is the wind blowing like a kazoo?
Now, are the clowns sad because the cheerleaders won’t date them, sad because the violins are playing “the Tune of 95%”, or just sad to be on “Self-Abortion River”?
It seems that Jewish people are prominent among those demonising Israel. It’s not just reticence to defend, it is positive desire to destroy.
There have been far worse but an editor of Israel’s main newspaper a few years ago, before the tide began to turn (ever so lightly), famously said it was his wet dream for Israel to be raped.
God bless and protect Israel and the Jewish people!
I see the urgent necessity for Mr. N. Podhoretz or somebody else to write the second book; “Why are the Jews liberals” and at last to give the honest,I emphasize the honest answer!
Hi David. I was recently reading the third edition of A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar, and was impressed with the scholarship.
I am thinking that a change in tactics and strategy by Israel would work wonders. This time they would look to balance what Martin Buber implored in 1920 with what Jabotinsky communicated, plus more emphasis on Brandeis and less on Weissmann.
As long as there are Arabs who are willing to distance themselves from the 4000 year old rivalry that started between Hagar and Sarah, they need to be strengthened, lest more mistakes be made.
Whenever this topic comes up there are always a number of commenters who raise the questions why are so many Jews so liberal, why are there so many treacherous Jews, as if no one has asked the same question before and as if it hasn’t already been thought about and written about extensively.
Ruth Wisse, Kenneth Levin, Ben Hecht …. and many others… are all extremely thoughtful, intelligent people who have written books on this subject. Read their books, or find articles they have written if you don’t have sufficient interest or attention span to read a book on the topic.
When you look in the dictionary under the word “disagreement” it doesn’t say “treachery” or “self-hating”.
Some people don’t think like you do – they’re not worse than you – get used to it.
James! the “disagreement” you talk about is the Israel`s existance.Israeli say: we can`t defend this frontiers,we`ll be beaten.Jewish liberals: you can!You mast trust your Palestinian brothers.But they cut the throats of our children! Free Palestine must be maintained and please,leave me with your problems!
It has been opined elsewhere, that this passivity/treachery/capo behaviour of the Jewish folk, is a developed survival mechanism.
Pograms occured with no resistance and the killers tired of it and left survivors….resistance resulted in thorough extermination.
Then came the HOLOCAUST, the killers were untiring, thorough, and implacable. This was something new that the developed policy/tactic abetted and a tactic that no longer worked.
The anti-Isreali Jews are merely an echo of this perhaps instinctive failed behaviour.
Right on Gork, well said.
Perhaps this is flogging a dead horse, after all their are new article to read and comment on, but I remembered this poem, and I post it in response to “The City of Slaughter”
Shortly after the Six Day War the great Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote this poem.
A man imprisoned and cast into a spell.
a man condemned to be the snake
who keeps watch over infamous gold,
a man condemned to be Shylock
a man bent over the earth in hard work
knowing that once he stood in Eden.
an old man with his eyes put out who will bring down
the pillars of the house.
a face condemned to wear a mask.
a man who in spite of men
is Spinoza and the Baal Shem and the cabalists.
a man who is the Book.
a tongue that praises from the depths
the justice of the skies.
a salesman or dentist
who spoke with God on the mountaintop.
a man condemned to be the object of ridicule.
the abomination, the Jew.
a man stoned, set afire.
asphyxiated in death chambers.
a man who endures and is deathless
and who now has returned to his battle.
to the violent light of victory
handsome as a lion in the twelve o’clock sun.