Is this anti-semitism?

Right like is ISIS part of the global left? It seems so incoherent. The left should be objecting to the things in the West that don't live up to their values but why is fundamentalist resistance in toto to the very source of enlightenment values aligned w leftism?

Mordy there's a tension between your observation that universities are expelling their Jews and the numbers (and percentages) of Jewish faculty today at American universities. (same is true in France btw: disproportionately high). I'd think you'd push back on the question of the link between being Jewish and being "pro-Israel".

― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, December 10, 2015 11:39 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the very concept of "pro-Israel" actually needs some interrogation though. Israel is a state that exists and that many Jewish people have ties to. What does "pro-Israel" mean? It seems like the implication of "just because you are Jewish doesn't mean you are pro-Israel" is that there are two camps -- believing Israel should exist or believing Israel should not exist. I would agree with Mordy that the majority of Jews probably believe Israel should exist. I would also doubt that many ethnic/religious groups are ever asked to declare a position on whether an existing state should continue to exist. Many non-Americans have ties to and even affection for America -- they have lived here, they have family here, they have traveled extensively here, worked here, etc. Does that make them pro-Imperialism?

i think love of a nation state does take you into some ambiguous "things you are pro" in general but certainly Israel isn't unique in any regard there

fwiw Mordy i'm in academia (the humanities no less) and not only are there a disproportionate number of jews in my field (and adjacent ones), but i haven't felt an ounce of hostility or 'marginalization.' my experience is certainly not the only one, and i grant that there are some left-wing groupthink anti-'Zionist' reflexes and actions, esp. on the part of the more obviously politicized fields, that are making people rightfully uncomfortable. but i can't help feeling like some of what the articles you have quoted/posted are alleging about academia is hyperbolic. extremely hyperbolic, in fact. kind of akin to all the hemming and hawing (sp?) over the implications 'trigger warnings,' when actually those things are quite rare.

i really don't like the pro-/anti- israel binary. it doesn't clarify my position or, for the most part, anyone else's. insofar as i say that any political resolution to the conflict in the holy land entails admitting that the state of israel isn't going anywhere, i suppose i'm pro-israel. but that's less of a zionist philosophy on my part and more of an acknowledgment of reality.

I hope you're right. Outspoken critics and defenders of Israel are motivated to make the phenomenon seem more prolific than maybe it is so it's hard to tell. xp

I Think that one of the problems with using the colonialism structure to understand Israel is that it obscures that pragmatic fact. If Israel is a "colonial settler state" then just like Algeria or Rhodesia or South Africa we can expect its imminent collapse. But if as is true in reality the people of Israel have nowhere else to go if the State falls apart then that kind of expectation is delusional.

you do know there are colonial settler states that haven't collapsed and are in fact doing quite well? (n.b. i am not trying to make any sort of point wrt Israel with this i just think it's weird to ignore the existence of the Americas)

if you go back far enough though, how many countries are settled by their 'original inhabitants'? i mean it just seems like you're setting yourself up for infinite regress if that is the foundation of your objection to the state of israel....

Yeah I just get a little uncomfortable with the whole "well just because you are Jewish doesn't mean you are pro-Israel" line because the implication seems to be "you COULD be ANTI-Israel." I married a fourth-generation Israeli (i.e. someone whose great grandfather came to Palestine well before it was Israel) and all of her extended family is still there. Am I "pro" their existence? Do I need to be "anti" their existence in order to be cool with the left? I don't ask people whether they are "pro" or "anti" Turkey because of the Kurds.

well sure i mean arguably all states are colonial settler states - part of the function of creating a unified national identity involved either assimilating or outright destroying competitive national identities. this is true all over the world but no less in the middle east where you have a number of arab states despite most of the middle east not being arabia (how did that happen!). but the way that colonial settler is used among anti-colonial leftists doesn't really account for it as a phenomenon beyond the european white colonization of africa, asia, south america, etc, where the US is the ultimate example of successful genocide (and therefore the cautionary tale to be resisted on every level) despite it being too much of a fait accompli in the US to actually suggest boycotting the country u were born in, etc. i mean this is my impression at least. xp

the anti-colonialism of the left is /very/ selective. i've noticed this since i was a teenager.

that's in way of agreement with you btw :)

Yeah I just get a little uncomfortable with the whole "well just because you are Jewish doesn't mean you are pro-Israel" line because the implication seems to be "you COULD be ANTI-Israel."

also too close to "well there are some good jews," which refers to a very tiny minority of actual jews. moreover the implicit suggestion that to be a good person you have to be anti-israel whereas i reject that insinuation entirely. not saying that's what's happening here in this thread but often that's how i understand the use of certain jews (like judith butler) to excuse antisemitism. it can't be antisemitic, after all this jew agrees with me. jews are allowed to support the only jewish state in the world - it's very reasonable and there's nothing immoral about it. after all israel is not actually a settler colonial state, or imperialist, or genocidal etc. if it becomes verboten to support israel, or jews feel uncomfortable supporting it in their departments, that isn't really mitigated by saying that support of israel isn't integral to being jewish. they support israel bc they're jews (among possibly other reasons) so it is ultimately targeting a performance of their identity, and demanding their disaffiliation with coreligionists.

the anti-colonialism of the left is /very/ selective. i've noticed this since i was a teenager.

― wizzz! (amateurist)

this is true and it's very sadly seemingly the result of extremely superficial, violence-based (the centrality of Palestine vis-a-vis a ton of other situations where western allies are shitty to national/ethnic minorities in their territories is def based on the focus brought to palestinian plight by high-profile acts of terrorism), or public relations focused (isn't the dalai lama cute? the beastie boys support Tibet! what's an Uighur?) aspects of various anti-colonial movements

i also think the 'it's not antisemitic to disagree with israeli policies' is a red herring. i'm pretty sure i've made this point on ilx before but no one who is pro-israel is pro every israeli policy. it's impossible for that to be true - like every State there are a variety of govts. Likudniks don't support the elements of govt that aren't Likud. Settlers don't support the elements of the Israeli State that are hostile to the settlements. iirc the majority of israelis aren't fans of the settlements themselves, but they're still pro israel. sometimes the most "pro-israel" pov is the most antagonistic towards the state - ie v right-wing charedi jews who believe the secular state is an abomination that needs to be replaced w/ a theological govt. so what does being anti-israel mean if every pro-israel person disagrees with some israeli policies? presumably it means being against the ongoing existence of israel as a jewish state (as amateurist points out, something absurd to believe since israel is not going anywhere). in fact i haven't seen this mentioned anywhere but there is literally no pressure that can be exerted on israel to become a binational state; if at any time it becomes too difficult israeli govts always reserve the option to unilaterally leave the WB. so some pressure could be provided to end the occupation but anyone trying to end the jewish state of israel does not really understand the circumstances at play. (cf ppl who believe the arabs outlasted the crusaders so they can outwait the jews too)

i'm pretty sure i've made this point on ilx before but no one who is pro-israel is pro every israeli policy. it's impossible for that to be true

that's true but there are some baseline activities that almost every israeli gov't in recent decades has been party to to which a lot of people rightfully (or at least righteously) object.

but i agree with you about the uselessness and insidiously of the anti- / pro-israel dichotomy.

xpost

i mean in the same sense there have been different parties in control of the white house over the past 40 years but there are some baseline assumptions about the projection of american power that never seem to be altered in any fundamental way.

is that true tho? like sharon unilaterally withdrew from gaza as recently as 2005. olmert offered a deal in 2008, etc. i guess you could say that bibi + olmert + sharon all shared the same mission -to keep israel a jewish state - but had different strategies for going about doing it. but then the opposition is to the fact that israel is a jewish state and not just a disagreement w/ tactics.

maybe i'm just not sufficiently up on the intricacies of israeli politics

but haven't the jewish settlements in the west bank -- which seem to me a violation of good faith with the palestinians -- basically been countenanced (and mostly expanding) under all these various administrations?

this is what haaretz said:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the number of West Bank settlers has grown by about 120,000 since he took office in 2009.

But while the number is correct, the reason has little to do with the pace of construction in the settlements during his tenure. In fact, since Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009, there has been less construction activity in the settlements than under any other prime minister since 1995.

Netanyahu made his statement during an internal meeting on Tuesday, in an effort to rebuff growing criticism from the right. A recording of his remarks was obtained later by Michal Shemesh, a reporter for Army Radio.

“The left accuses us that from 280,000 [settlers] we’ve risen to 400,000, and that was during years when we were told that official U.S. policy was not even one house,” Netanyahu can be heard to say. “Praise God, this isn’t far from the truth. It’s the biggest increase in our world.”

This increase, however, isn’t because Netanyahu has gone on a building spree. According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of his recent predecessors.

By comparison, the annual average was 1,881 under Ariel Sharon and 1,774 under Ehud Olmert. As for Ehud Barak, during his single full year as prime minister, in 2000, he built a whopping 5,000 homes in the settlements.

The current rate is also only about half the pace of settlement construction during Netanyahu’s first term of office, in 1996-99, when it averaged almost 3,000 homes a year.

So why has the number of settlers increased so sharply? Due to natural growth, especially in the two ultra-Orthodox towns of Betar Ilit and Modi’in Ilit. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the fertility rate in the settlements is 5.01 children per woman, which is far higher than anywhere else in Israel. In the northern district, which ranks second, the fertility rate is just 3.91 children per woman.

Thus in 2013, for instance, 12,129 children were born in the settlements and only 535 people died. This is also a very low death rate, which stems from the fact that the settler population is relatively young.

The statistics bureau’s data also shows that 74 percent of the growth in the number of settlers from 2009-2014 stemmed from natural increase. In 2014, for instance, the number of settlers rose by 14,200.

Of these, 11,800, or 83 percent of the growth, was a result of natural increase (births minus deaths) and only 2,400 the result of net migration to the settlements. In 2012, by contrast, natural increase accounted for only 68 percent of the total increase in the number of settlers.

in terms of new settlements (as opposed to housing in old ones) from what i understand there have been virtually no new ones (3 total?) approved in ~20+ years. nb that article is from 2014 so that figure might've changed. nb there are illegal non-govt sanctioned hill top settlements that do go up.

but you're kind of making my point, actually. under the center-left gov'ts, settlements were built. under netanyahu, they may not be built, but they are becoming more deeply entrenched.

so the point is that people rightfully object, not just to the policies of netanyahu and other rightists, but to what might be said to be the overall policy of the israeli government regardless of its position on the political spectrum -- which is to ensure that the the jewish settlements are deeply entrenched.

i hear, tho tbph i don't consider boycotts against the settlements to be remotely the same as boycotts against israel in toto (even tho i don't support either boycott personally)

sorry i forgot that i repeated that phrase!

the point is that israeli governments both 'left' and 'right' are complicit in something that many people (including many israelis!) view as evidence of bad faith vis-à-vis the palestinians (and vis-à-vis many international agreements as well).

xpost

but if you view israeli gov't as fundamentally complicit in the settlements then i can see how you could easily want to extend the boycott to israel as a whole

Ok I don't know anything about academic anthropology. in my area there are so many Jewish scholars that one of them once told me I was Jewish in an honorary way just by working in the area.

btw I'm writing this from Toulouse which feels ironically apt

anyway, the pt is that you can even oppose the settlements and still be "pro-israel" - the only issue is when you believe the entire israel is a settlement (aka the 1948 occupation pov) that needs to be dismantled xp

yup

I guess I also don't like saying "pro-Israel" because I'm not one of those people who goes to Israel day parades and waves flags. I don't buy Israel bonds or give money to the JNF or send pizza to IDF soldiers or whatever. In college I refused to go on a Birthright trip because I objected to the implications of the name. I also detest the current admin and the general direction Israeli politics has been going in. But I also would never use the term "anti-Israel" or "anti-Zionist" to describe myself, and I can't quite get comfortable with "post-Zionism" as a remotely realistic mode of approaching things. I would maybe say I'm zionist-sympathetic and even admittedly slightly biased toward Israel, but generally with a left-liberal slant. The rhetorical strategy of the Palestinian movement seems to be to try to put people like me in a bind -- choose a side, theirs or ours. You're either a good one or a bad one. TBF, right-wingers often do the same to liberal Jews from the other side.

Friend who spent her 20s in London and then moved back to Tel Aviv has commented recently that she is sick of seeing both sides in the conflict totally manipulated into endless warfare by international munitions companies, etc.

choose a side, theirs or ours. You're either a good one or a bad one. TBF, right-wingers often do the same to liberal Jews from the other side.

Speaking of which:

The president wrote back, admitting that he was embarrassed, to inform me that when he brought this to the shul committee concern unexpectedly arose. Trying to justify what he was about to tell me, he joked: “Because we are a synagogue … we have to be arguing about you coming to speak. The argument goes something like this … ”

Then he got to the point. Some people in the meeting, he explained, said that since “he appears on MSNBC and CNN, he is clearly J Street,”

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/195443/closing-american-jewish-mind

whoa, charles davis has found the nexus point between awesomeness fest burner culture and nationalist antisemitism:

https://twitter.com/charliearchy/status/675417537262301184

or it's just the latter dressed up in the former's clothing, but damn

wtf is this even for real?
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/151436/fourteen-members-paris-synagogue-poisoned

http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-jewish-politician-73-found-dead-in-home-near-paris/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/marseille-jews-warned-against-wearing-kippas-after-attack/

france-watch. guess we're gonna see if they can break 2015's record number of jewish emigrants.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYjYwiXWwAEdLxS.jpg

Joann Sfar cartoon.

I have always detested/hated religious signs. But now that in France I see that we're advising Jewish people to not wear a kippah 'for their security', I fancy wearing a kippah, bunches and to have the Rabbi Jacob at full blast on my walkman. Yes, I said walkman.

more in this article about french ppl wearing yarmulkes in solidarity w/ jews who have been cautioned to hide their identities:
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/calls-for-jewish-people-to-remove-their-skullcaps-provokes-brilliant-response-in-france--ZkKaqeTP2l

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.697721

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/26/israel-derangement-syndrome-envelops-the-far-left-six-examples/

Anti-Israel sentiment at that most progressive of colleges, Oberlin, is bleeding into anti-Semitism (or maybe anti-Israel sentiment is simply providing a cover for latent anti-Semitism). Professor William Jacobson has the details here, but even if you don’t read the whole post, read the end of it, where he quotes a lengthy Facebook post from a recent alumna about anti-Semitic incidents she experienced or witnessed as a left-wing, but pro-Israel Jewish student there. I won’t endorse the claim that every one of these incidents was anti-Semitic, as such, but, assuming they are all true, they paint a very disturbing picture. I was particularly struck by her claim that multiple times she heard Oberlin students dismiss the Holocaust as “white on white violence.”

not once but multiple times? jfc.

this is excellent:
https://libcom.org/library/antisemitism-modern-critique-capitalism

In Marx’s Jewish Question (1964) and the writings of the Frankfurt School, the category ‘Jew’ is a social metaphor that focuses anti-capitalist resentment from the standpoint of capitalism – an anti-capitalist capitalism. In contrast, however, to Anderson’s affirmative categorization, Marx and the Frankfurt School approached the ‘Jewish Question’ through the lens of the critique of the fetishism of bourgeois relations of production. Expanding on Marx’s critical question, ‘why does this content [human social relations] assume that form [the form of capital]’ (cf. Marx, 1962, p. 95), it asks why does the bourgeois critique of capitalism assume the form of antisemitism? In contrast, the affirmative use of the category ‘Jew’ rationalizes antisemitism as a manifestation of the hatred of capitalism, and through its rationalization, is complicit in the ‘rumour about Jews’. Such complicity partakes in the paradigmatic fascist gesture of an anti-capitalism that seeks a capitalism without capitalism.

written 24 years ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Socialism-Fools-Anti-Semitism-Left/dp/0935933050

acc to postone modern antisemitism on the left has its roots in soviet antisemitism so i know it has been around for a while but the most interesting thing for me is that is written by michael lerner who i wouldn't have expected to write such a polemic from other things i've read + know about him (i mean i'm pleasantly surprised, at least based on reading the summary).

one of the best things on the topic that i think i linked up to above is the steve cohen book bc he makes a critique i know v well from orthodox jewish upbringing but in the language of left-wing politics which is the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem. i was thinking about this recently when i was discussing the question of jews and privilege w/ someone and he mentioned that part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question. "well you can always take off your kipa and then no one will know" (which isn't 100% true either since jewish variety often encompasses non-white bodies - even among ashkenazim)

But the propaganda offensive continued with radio broadcasts from Ger- many and Italy and leaflets distributed by intelligence units in the armed forces and from diplomatic posts in Tunisia and Morocco. Between January 1 and February 18, in Tunis and Tangier alone, German intelligence agents and diplo- mats distributed approximately 400,000 Arabic-language leaflets and pam- phlets.2 Among these was “Facts,” 25,000 copies of which were divided equally between Tunis and Tangier. The pamphlet warned that the fate of Arabs in Palestine could be a harbinger of things to come in North Africa.

"The North Africans know that a large number of the Jews who live in Tunisia, Al- geria, and Morocco have acquired foreign citizenship, and they know the effects of this on the Arab-Jewish relationship. . . . [T]he North Africans understand that the Jews living in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco do not cultivate land, do not repair the roads, do not build houses, and pursue Jewish vocations. They special- ize in deception and grabbing money. So what will be the fate of North Africa if this situation continues? Will the Jews become the friends of the kings while the Arabs become servants? Something like this already happened in Palestine. . . . Will the children of the Jews go to school while the children of the Arabs are removed [so they can] polish shoes and pick up cigarette butts? Something re- sembling this happened in Palestine. Will Muslim girls become servants in the houses of Jews? That really happened in Palestine under the auspices of the English.3"

“Who Are the Arabs’ Real Allies?” (5,000 copies distributed in Tunis, 4,000 in Tangier) asserted that the English and the Americans were “attacking Islam in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco by means of their missionaries. Have you seen the Germans do something like this?” The English had interfered in the affairs of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq and opposed nationalist movements and killed their leaders.“Have you heard of the Germans trying something like this? And you’ve heard that the English and the Americans think about establishing an ethnic nation for the Jews in North Africa on the model of Palestine. Could you imagine the Germans doing something like this?” The English and Ameri- cans defended “the old system of colonialism,” but the Germans and their allies “call for a new system, a system of cooperation. So then who are the true allies of the Arabs?”4

I've moved on to Jeffrey Herf's "Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World"

the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem. i was thinking about this recently when i was discussing the question of jews and privilege w/ someone and he mentioned that part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question. "well you can always take off your kipa and then no one will know" (which isn't 100% true either since jewish variety often encompasses non-white bodies - even among ashkenazim)

Lots to unpack here. I'd like to hear what you mean by "the often explicit call from the left for jews to assimilate and end the jewish problem" -- if you mean that the left tends to idealize a kind of "judaism of 1965 philip roth" that foregrounds culture, food, linguistic idiosyncracy and suppresses religious observance, traditional sex roles, insularity, then yes, I think that's true -- I think 1965 philip roth is deeply ambivalent about jewish insularity and longs for assimilation in the sense of "I can go to Ohio State and feel like I belong there" but I don't think there's even a HINT of a wish for a future where there's no such thing as a jew because we've all melted into the blond bloodline.

What I think is true is that liberal Jews are uncomfortable encouraging our kids to marry other Jews, because prohibition against intermarriage has an ugly smell in just about every other American context. I'm comfortable with my discomfort about this! I'm going to do it and I'm going to maintain my discomfort about it, I think it's a discomfort worth having.

part of that privilege is that jews can pass (i think djp may have made this suggestion once as well on another thread) which i take on as legitimate. but i also notice that it implicitly calls for assimilation as the solution to the jewish question.

Guess I don't see that. What's true is that it's less true that a Satmar dude carries privilege than it is that I do. But I feel like the people saying "we don't have privilege, we're not really white, we're Jews" are typically not Satmar dudes, they're people who look like me, and who pass without any effort, indeed who pass without even really wanting to. But I mean, to the Satmar dude, somebody like me, who's married to a Jew, who belongs to a shul, who has kids in Talmud Torah, but who doesn't keep kosher or wear a kipa, is assimilated almost to the point of annihilation. If they see an America where most Jews look and act like me as one where the "Jewish question" has been tragically resolved by assimilation, I can't stop them, but this is my parents' and my grandparents' Judaism, it's what I care about preserving, what can I do but live it and raise my kids in it?

In terms of the left's call upon jews to assimilate Cohen's chapter The Left's Advice to Jews—Assimilate and Stop Being Jewish is more comprehensive than I'll be here (and I found it very interesting) but ultimately there's a very strong tradition in Left that goes back to Marx that sees Jewishness as something to emancipate the Jews from - this is present in 18th century France as well (Clermont-Tonnerre who i feel certain we've discussed here before). here the argument is being made from the left itself (see his critique of this as an obliteration of cultural/peoplehood rights) but this argument is actually a dominant narrative in the orthodox community (or at least the orthodox communities to which i have belonged). you can understand why as they see the entire process of liberalism to be dangerous to their group conception (cynically u could say bc it opens a door for ppl to leave the community, but also there is a legitimate concern about hegemonic alternative cultures that is present as far back as the Maccabi narrative). there are many stories i have heard w/ variations about rabbis saying that they prefer the difficult life under the Czar than the liberation of France bc one is only dangerous to your body but the other can destroy your soul (this was also a big discourse in Europe pre-WW2 regarding the goldene medina). If your Jewish context is as part of this liberalizing movement from yr pov it might not feel as pressing and it sounds like in your case you have two values that are in total collision - this imperative to maintain peoplehood (however you understand that to be constituted) and these values of assimilation/intermarriage that are the hegemonic cultural force. I do feel like these are complicated questions and on some level I feel like talking across a divide bc with the religious component the tensions in values are immediately reconciled on the side of Jewish continuity and on the non-religious side I think it is probably more difficult to answer some of these questions.

there's a couple typos there ("ultimately there's a very strong tradition in the* Left" "I feel like I'm talking from* across a divide") and I'm sorry I should have put more paragraph breaks in there.