Thursday, January 26, 2012
Anti-Semitism
When I was a child I continually heard this joke: “You know
the difference between a Jew and a pizza?
A pizza doesn’t scream when you put it in the oven.”
Around 1990 I was in another deputy district attorney’s office
when the chief investigator came in and told us this bit of humor: “What did the Jewish pervert say to the
little girl? Hey, little girl, want to
buy a piece of candy?” They both
laughed. The joke was repeated again in
my presence to a chief deputy who also laughed.
(None of these people are still with the office.)
It is easy, in the America of 2011, to forget that there are large segments of the population who still hate Jews, or at a minimum accept age-old stereotypes. Before you do forget consider these recent events.
- Today’s New York Times carried an article about the publication of Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” in Germany. Publication is illegal there, in large part to prevent Germans from again adopting Hitler’s beliefs. “This week the government released the results of a two-year study showing that one in five Germans still harbored anti-Semitic beliefs, despite decades spent educating school about Judaism and tolerance, and a firm rejection of anti-Semitism by the governing political establishment.”
- From Tuesday’s New York Times: “A man who the authorities said was driven by hatred of Jews was charged Tuesday with firebombing two Bergen County synagogues. The man, Anthony Graziano, 19, of Lodi, was arrested in the Jan. 11 attack on a Rutherford synagogue and the Jan. 3 firebombing of a Paramus synagogue. He was being held in $5 million bail. The charges include nine counts of attempted murder, bias intimidation, arson and aggravated arson.”
- From the January 19 New York Times: “Swastikas, as well as the words ‘Die Jew,’ had been painted on a garage in Midwood and on the stairs of a Jewish school, part of a recent spate of anti-Semitic crimes in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey and on Long Island.”
- From January 10(ynetnews.com): “The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday denounced anti-Semitic remarks Keith Hudson, an evangelical minister and the father of pop star Katy Perry, made during a sermon at Church On The Rise in Westlake, Ohio. ‘You know how to make the Jew jealous? Have some money, honey,’ Hudson allegedly said to the congregants. He added that ‘you go to LA and they own all the Rolex and diamond places. Walk down a part of LA where we live and it is so rich it smells….You ever smell rich? They are all Jews, hallelujah. Amen.’” (Hudson later apologized and claimed he is not anti-Semitic. Whether he is or isn’t the remarks speak for themselves, and he said them.)
These are not wackos who blame 9/11 on the Elders of Zion, or
Islamic extremists who are sword to Jihad against Jews. Perhaps these are isolated incidents, but all
of these articles are from a single month.
I think about these comments, actions, crimes and beliefs at
times. While I no longer practice
Judaism, my ethnic background is still that of a Jew. I cannot avoid at times feeling that this
undercurrent of anti-Semitism can still perhaps blossom into something more
dangerous. A nightmare scenario was
imagined by Phillip Roth in his book “The Plot Against America” where a
pro-Nazi Charles Lindburgh gets elected president in 1940 while World War II
rages in Europe and turns America into a virulently anti-Semitic nation. The story is fiction, but Lindburgh’s
admiration for the Nazis was not.
As someone from a Jewish background, I feel the sting of these
things, even though I no longer practice my parents’ religion. I am a Jew, both in the eyes of the world and
inside my head. Judiasm is as much ethnicity
as religion. My family were reform Jews—not
keeping kosher, working on Saturday, services predominantly in English—but nevertheless
my family on both sides comes from East European Jews. Had I lived during the Holocaust, I would
have gone to the camps. Certainly I am
not one who would have survived.
I cannot say I have been subject to discrimination to any
significant degree. I am sure most Jews
have not. Still, when influential people
where you work are willing to tell a joke in your presence, demonstrating a
bias against your ethnicity (and they did know I was Jewish), it gives you
pause. Harmless insensitivity? Perhaps.
But what if I decided to ask for a raise? Would I be seen as just another
money-grubbing Jew?
It is difficult for me to write this blog, because I am not
sure exactly the point I am trying to make.
I guess I just wanted to make people aware that even though it is easy
to forget some of the hate, it is still out there.
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