Is this anti-semitism?

stupid fucking Scottish people (... I assume)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-57025065

Why is he wearing a star of David?

this was a relief honestly: https://film.avclub.com/lakeith-stanfield-apologizes-for-participating-in-clubh-1846853124

rough week

Weird ass exchange I just had, just need to write it down somewhere -- I'm outside taking some mulch bags out of my car, and this pickup truck suddenly pulls over, wiry oldish guy driving it, has an accent, starts yelling something to me about whether I'm the new owner and that he knew the old owner. Immediately asks me my background, and then asks if I'm Jewish, I say yes.

He tells me he was just doing some work at a Yeshiva nearby and helping them with their Sukkah. I say that's nice and tell him I'm not "Yeshiva Jewish" but celebrate the holidays - he seems familiar enough with Judaism to understand the distinction. He explains that he's from Poland. He runs a tree service, so I assume he's trying to get some business from me, as he explains that he did work for the old owner. Which is fine.

He tells me that he just visited a Jewish history site in Poland relating to the holocaust. He shows me a brochure in Polish and proceeds to translate large parts of it for me -- it is of course difficult to hear stuff about families who were killed in the holocaust. It feels uncomfortable of course, I guess the kind of thing some people might call a "microaggression," but I figure he mostly means well even though it's like "thanks dude, but I don't really feel like interrupting my pleasant afternoon to hear about the holocaust from some guy in a pickup truck." He seems sympathetic etc. and mostly well-meaning if a little odd.

Trying to be, IDK the right word - gracious? Benevolent? I mention that Poland also suffered greatly in WWII, which I think is a fair point even if Jews had it much worse and some of that was at the hands of Poles. I don't really like suffering contests, and the world wars were all around horrific for civilians and soldiers alike. I mention what little I know about the Katyn massacre, as there used to be a huge Katyn memorial near where I lived. He now starts to explain that Jews who joined the communists turned in the Poles who were massacred (even though, in fact, around 8% of the Katyn victims were Jews). IDK really to what extent that might be true, certainly there would have been some Jews who defected to the Russian communists, and I'm sure some of them did in fact turn people in, but it certainly sounded like antisemitic conspiracy to focus on that. Still I listened, but ultimately diverted him from discussing the holocaust or WWII any further before things got any worse. Finally he started talking about how great Poland is now, even better than the US, because it's "mostly white people" and how "the elites" are trying to bring everyone over here to ruin things, and at that point I said I had to get back to work, nice meeting you etc.

Were you thinking of the Katyn memorial at Exchange Place? Because that's quite a sculpture.

Polish nationalism is awful btw. I feel like the fascist Soviet-controlled occupied years broke something and everyone is deathly sick with this disease that they don't see creeping over them. This is undoubtedly being too charitable to a bunch of anti-semitic white supremacists, probably. Idk maybe it's just the people I know, my boyfriend's family were refugees who fled because of his dad's participation in a resistance group, imprisonment, threats, etc.

The suppression of Polish culture, language, Catholicism, etc for those years means that there's a really weird line between, like, being fiercely proud to express those things again and believing that no one can be "Polish" unless they share every aspect of that. I'm not a historian so I don't know of good parallels of countries who have gone through similar. Maybe it's a pattern. Anyway I'm sorry that guy was that guy. :(

We had a run-in with the whole “restoring Poland’s good name” thing in greenpoint a couple of years back, when we got home I looked up the group that was leafleting us and I was totally disgusted

Were you thinking of the Katyn memorial at Exchange Place? Because that's quite a sculpture.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, September 17, 2021 6:23 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yup! And I felt like it really helped me understand the, uh, Polish psychopathology around WWII, a giant sculpture of a guy being bayonetted through the back.

I also told him about my polish grandpa, who left decades before the holocaust and made suits in Brooklyn. All of my family left decades before the holocaust, which is another reason I don't particularly feel like talking about it with rando pickup truck guy, but probably I'd want to even less so if they hadn't left.

When you don't know whether to post in the "is this anti-semitism" thread or the "Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread"

https://midhudsonnews.com/2021/09/18/member-of-nypd-arrested-for-vandalizing-jewish-camp/

Powerful Sarah Silverman follow-up to Joan Rivers bio casting news, Jewish representation, how her blackface scandal ties in, Falsettos, how it feels to watch gentiles play Jewish caricatures. Captures a lot in 15 mins. https://t.co/DknmlupUrO

— Jason Zinoman (@zinoman) September 30, 2021

Speaking as a Jewish person, I assumed Kathryn Hahn was one of us. She's a Sandra Bernhard type!

fake jews

her performance as a reconstructionist rabbi in transparent was on point

Her sister's a rabbi, iirc.

Hahn, not Silverman, played a rabbi on Transparent.

While I’m sympathetic to Silverman’s argument, she does omit that the Jewiest member of the Pfeffermans was in fact played by a Jew, Judith Light.

does silverman actually complain about Transparent on that pod? The Pfeffermans rang pretty authentic to me, I was also shocked that gaby hoffmann isn't Jewish. Didn't look at the spelling of the last name carefully enough.

Anyway I'm genuinely and shamefully ignorant about Joan Rivers. Was her Jewishness central to her persona?

this was the worst non-Jews playing Jewish caricatures movie I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH0cEP0mvlU

I wouldn’t use the word complain, but she cites Transparent in running down a list of shows and movies where Jewishness is integral to character/plot/tone and nonJewish actors are cast to play Jews and to play them in a sort of caricatured way. Which Transparent again isn’t the best example of. And I too was surprised to find that Hoffman isn’t Jewish - her story is pretty wild - she grew up in the Chelsea Hotel and her mother was a Warhol superstar.

I'm considerably more familiar with the mother than the daughter!

I showed the video to my kids and their reaction was basically "well, yeah."

I think the "Jews don't count" mentality has been so pervasive for so long at this point that a lot of Jews have maybe internalized it themselves (myself included). Which is I suppose kind of odd, given that there was a serious and almost successful attempt to wipe Jews off the face of the earth *in my own mother's lifetime.* It's odd to be part of a minority in some ways famous for surviving and being successful in the face of adversity, which, combined with decades/centuries of the anti-semitic tropes Silverman illustrates (Jews are rich, Jews run Hollywood/the world, Jews are smart, whatever) has eroded sympathy and perhaps instilled no small degree of self-consciousness/self-loathing, which Silverman also illustrates, and which critics of her criticism have glommed on to. "If Jews run Hollywood, and Jews produce and write the movies, then why don't they cast more Jews as Jews?"

I am technically Jewish, tho was not raised in the faith. I guess that I'm confused about how people *know* that someone else is Jewish?

Jewdar

I am technically Jewish, tho was not raised in the faith. I guess that I'm confused about how people *know* that someone else is Jewish?

― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Friday, October 1, 2021 2:48 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a simplified version of my upbringing, but let me tell you, the kids with the last name Mengle sure knew.

I grew up in a very Jewish area, so the fact that I'm part Jewish but not raised as a Jew was always very apparent to me, especially in 7th grade when all my friends were having wild Bar/Bat/B'not Mitzvahs

And yes, I went to TWO B'not mitzvahs as a teenager, wild chances I know.

I'm confused about how people *know* that someone else is Jewish?

I am too, but the Chabadniks definitely always find me when they're on the prowl to get people to shake the lulav or whatever, doesn't matter how big the crowd, they zero in, "Sir, are you Jewish?"

I think that because my Jewish side is mixed with someone with most black Irish and Welsh blood, I don't get "called out" as being a Jew based on my appearance, at least not in the way some other people might.

I don't really care if non-Jews play Jews. I think the complaint about representation typically comes from groups who don't get roles proportionate to their numbers. I don't get the impression that there's a dearth of Jewish actors getting roles, either as Jews or non-Jews. I was more bothered by something like School Ties back in the day, where in order to cast a "hot guy" Jew, they cast a non-Jew.

I disliked the characters in Transparent to the point that I had to stop watching it, but at the same time I can't exactly say it's because they are Jewish stereotypes. They are complex characters, they just kind of suck as people. I sometimes wasn't sure if the show was actually fully aware of how much they sucked, and that's part of why I didn't enjoy the show. It felt like there was authorial narcissism reflected in the characters' narcissism and therefore it wasn't fully knowing.

I am too, but the Chabadniks definitely always find me when they're on the prowl to get people to shake the lulav or whatever, doesn't matter how big the crowd, they zero in, "Sir, are you Jewish?"

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, October 1, 2021 3:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol, these guys spotted me on Sukkot from like 100 yards away - I was outside at a cafe near a train station and they were all the way on the other side of the platform - they honed in on me and crossed the platform just so I could do the lulav shake. I indulged them and then the cafe owner chased them away. I felt sort of bad because they looked like they were maybe 15 years old. But I'm sure they get it a lot.

I honestly love how much they don't give a shit what anybody thinks

I grew up in a very Jewish area,

How could you tell? ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiscEsSompQ

(2:05)

Lol, these guys spotted me on Sukkot from like 100 yards away

I was once at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a friend for a history of hip-hop exhibit. He and I, er, look pretty Jewish, so on the way out we prepared ourselves for the onslaught. But they went right past us to Adam Yauch, who had just left the exhibit behind us.

I don't get the impression that there's a dearth of Jewish actors getting roles, either as Jews or non-Jews.

I think Silverman's main beef was that Jewish women specifically don't get cast as Jewish women, especially if they're the star/hero. Her specific list included more recently Hahn as Joan Rivers, Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Rachel Brosnahan in "Mrs. Maisel," Rachel McAdams in "Disobedience," Valerie Harper as Rhoda... I can throw in off the top of my head Lorraine Bracco in "GoodFellas," Rachel Sennott in "Shiva Baby," um, Embeth Davidtz in "Schindler's List" ...

I just googled and found this from 2011, pegged to Minnie Driver playing a Jew in "The Governess:"

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/if-in-doubt-cast-a-gentile-1179822.html

And of course there is a long and storied history of, from Lauren Bacall (nee Perske) to Jennifer Grey, Jewish female actors getting nose jobs to get acting jobs, whereas Jewish men from Dustin Hoffman to Woody Allen were allowed to be very Jewish leads. You know, "ethnic types."

JiC, you grew up around here, I think— I didn't even realize it until I was in 5th grade or so, all my friends started having to go to Hebrew School.

this was very much my experience as well living in Brookline, MA

Yeah, I was just, er, Joshing. I grew up in West Chester, PA, and honestly didn't feel the Jewish community there was any more robust than it is here. Which is to say, relatively modest compared to the burbs north of Chicago, or the New York/New Jersey area, or LA, etc. Or even Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, where my friends grew up (and attended the synagogue that was shot up).

In that Silverman thing she talks about casting actors as her (real life) mom in a play, and all the actors kept coming in with exaggerated New York-styled caricatures of Jews. And she's like, I grew up in New Hampshire, my mom is from Connecticut, she's nothing like a New Yorker. And yet for some reason that's where those actors went when asked to play a Jewish mother...

but isn't the offensive caricaturing of Jewish women the problem, rather than whether or not the actress doing the caricaturing is actually Jewish?

lizzy caplan should be getting all these roles imo

I wouldn’t use the word complain...

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, September 30, 2021

"i guess you could say more of a kvetch, if i'm being honest..."

wtf

NEW: A school administrator in Southlake, Texas, advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also have a book with an "opposing" perspective.

Listen to the audio recording obtained by @NBCNews: https://t.co/vS0IjlROMu pic.twitter.com/yPtM1ncjgV

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 14, 2021

That's not a good sign.

"We need our children to hear the Nazis' side of the story before we rush to judgement here. Those Nuremburg trials were a travesty of justice, held by" (checks notes) "a government of the USA run by a Democrat."

That story and the whole hubbub surrounding Southlake, TX, is absolutely mindboggling and depressing.

So @jonstewart recently broke Hollywood's complete silence on @jk_rowling unapologetically maintaining antisemitic folklore through Harry Potter. pic.twitter.com/ezWrxpzryB

— raf (@rafaelshimunov) January 3, 2022

I saw that thread earlier and am embarrassed to admit I missed the STARS OF DAVID on the floor of the bank?!

(I mean I missed them when I saw that terrible movie; they are impossible to miss in that clip)

Tbf:

Newsweek et al, may eat my ass. pic.twitter.com/eRoYYeNRi1

— Jon Stewart (@jonstewart) January 5, 2022

huh. I rewatched the first clip after that and, I don't know exactly why he's backpedalling but, come on, he brings up the protocols! I mean yes they're all laughing but it's not just a "lighthearted conversation" what a crock

David Baddiel, who took Corbyn's pronunciation of convicted paedophile Epstein's surname in a tv interview as a coded anti-Semitic slur is being very generous and *nuanced* in his interpretation of JK's use of this PotEoZ imagery.

There's a surprise.