Isaac Chotiner's right, this David Samuels essay on the state of American Jewry sure is terrible. But it's also a very strange reading of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, and involves a bizarre attempt to turn Philip Roth into a Bush fan and Iraq War proponent, so it's worth reading in a grimly fascinating kind of way.
« Mitt: No Muslims for Me | Main | Romney's Race to Lose? »
The Lambs
27 Nov 2007 08:01 am
Comments (21)
I think my favorite bit is:
Yes, Jewish life in America remains a flowering paradise compared with the realities of being a Jew in contemporary Britain or France.
What on earth is he talking about?
"What on earth is he talking about?"
British MP report on rising antisemetism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5319716.stm
Jews in France Feel Sting as Anti-Semitism Surges Among Children of Immigrants
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/26antisemitism.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"What the reviewers missed was that Roth’s Plot Against America also contained a less conventional effort to come to terms with the rising tide of anti-Semitic agitation that accompanied the Second Intifada, 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq War. Roth was speaking in code to like-minded readers, reminding them of the links between isolationism and anti-Semitism without stepping over the lines that might render him obnoxious to the NPR-listening public."
Which part of that makes Roth pro Bush and pro Iraq war?
Which part of that makes Roth pro Bush and pro Iraq war?
The part where Samuels is a paranoid idiot.
It strikes me that people in the US are increasingly starting to write and say things that are totally fucking insane. I used to know Dave Samuels glancingly. I didn't remember him being a complete nut case. Now he's got Philip Roth speaking to him in code. What the hell happened?
Which part of that makes Roth pro Bush and pro Iraq war?
I believe what MY is referring to is the author's linkage of "isolationism" with "anti-Semitism" in the context of "the beginning of the Iraq War." IOW, the author seems to be suggesting that not supporting the Iraq War ("isolationism") is tantamount to anti-Semitism.
Now he's got Philip Roth speaking to him in code. What the hell happened?
Yeah, that was my favorite part, too. I actually chuckled out loud when I read it. And I agree with MY that Samuels' take on Chabon's book is, well, breathtaking. He doesn't seem to be paranoid, though, so much as just an absolute black hole of narcissism.
Obviously there's some problems with anti-semitism among Muslim immigrant communities in Britain and France that we don't seem to have - probably in part because we don't have as many Muslim immigrants. As far as I can tell, though, these are pretty localized to immigrant communities, and have little to do with the overall status of Jews in those countries. Beyond that, Samuels is clearly trying to conflate this kind of anti-semitic violence with the fact that anti-zionism is much more prevalent in Britain and France than in the US. The whole thing is obnoxious.
BTW, isn't this - Jews are that social element that will not allow itself to be assimilated into its surroundings, in Alaska or anywhere else, a posture that will always create tension and resentment - basically a restatement of anti-semitic propaganda?
That Jews are an alien element that can never be assimilated is pretty much a touchstone of anti-semitism. Of course, Zionism has always involved a lot of internalization of anti-semitic tropes, but I've never seen it stated so baldly.
Oddly enough, Samuels interpretation of "The Plot Against America" is the same as the one offered by conservative isolationist (and Charles Lindberg fan) Bill Kauffman in The American Conservative. He also read the book as implicitly neoconservative tract:
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_09_27/review.html
The Chabon book was initially attacked as anti-Israel. Now it's being seen as a pro-Zionist polemic. The lesson from all this is that lunkheads can't be trusted to read novels as literary works.
Hey Matt -
Once you and your "Israel Lobby"-obsessed readership finish with your angry circle-jerk on your corporate blog, you might want to check out the front-page review of Philip Roth's novel in the New York Times Book Review, which treats the book the same way that I did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/books/review/03BERMAN.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1
I never said anything about Philip Roth being a fan of George Bush, and your attempt to imply that my essay is somehow pro-Bush is just silly -- since I spend a good part of my time drawing the parallels between Bush's failed Iraq policy and his failed Palestine policy.
It's obvious that you haven't read the Chabon book either, since my reading is hardly exotic.
What I don't understand is why you engage in this kind of public invective about books that you haven't read, and about subjects that you know nothing about.
But anger feels good, right?
That review you linked to is not saying the things that you seem to think it is. I can't imagine anyone being angry at you, either. You seriously have a problem with all this.
I guess I just imagined this part of the review, then:
The anti-Semitism Roth describes in the 1940's springs mostly from an antiwar resentment — from the belief that the Jews, and not the Nazis, bear responsibility for the war, and are trying to advance their own narrow interests at everyone else's expense. And perhaps a bit of this has likewise turned up in our own time. During the last two or three years, large publics in Western Europe and even in the United States have taken up the view that, if extremist political movements have swept across large swaths of the Muslim world, and if Baathists and radical Islamists have slaughtered literally millions of people during these last years, and then have ended up at war with the United States, Israel and its crimes must ultimately be to blame. And if America has been drawn into war in Iraq, it is because President Bush's second-level foreign policy advisers include a few Jews (though all of his toplevel advisers are Protestants), and these second- level figures have manipulated everyone else to the bidding of Ariel Sharon.
Quite a few protesters who subscribe to interpretations of this sort have found it natural during the last few years to march through the streets bearing placards denouncing Sharon, and sometimes comparing him to Hitler — quite as if Sharon were the embodiment of evil in the modern world. Some people have found it natural to go a bit farther, and have proclaimed an outright approval of suicide terrorism, as happened in Washington, where people marching in the street chanted, ''Martyrs, not murderers!''
It has become natural in these last years for political cartoonists in Europe to draw Sharon in the memorable style that Nazi cartoonists used to reserve for Jews; natural for a notorious and well-designed poster in San Francisco to suggest, in the spirit of medieval anti- Semitism, that Israelis murder Palestinian children in order to eat them; natural for Jewish students to feel intimidated at more than a few American college campuses; natural, in Paris, for a handful of militants to veer off from the biggest of the protest marches against the invasion of Iraq and rough up a few Jews — these many astonishing developments that depart pretty sharply from the protest atmosphere of the Vietnam era, yet do conjure a few scents and flavors of the 1930's and 40's.
One of the really fun things about modern blogging is that you can have a thread together with a dozen commenters denouncing the ravings of some nut, and then---what do you know!---the nut himself appears in the thread to defend his ravings.
Wasn't there a Woody Allen movie in which the same sort of thing happens regarding a debate on the theories of Marshall McLuhan?
I'll have to admit that I haven't actually read the ravings in question, but I tend to trust the opinion of Matt and the commenters more than that of the nut.
Actually, the anger is justified by your essay, Davild Samuels. In my opinion, it shows that you are either a deceitful liar or an ignorant fool.
America has lost 3700+ sons in an unnecessary war --as well as thousands more crippled for life. Our federal debt is almost $4 TRILLION more than what it was projected to be in 2001.
George Bush lied us into Iraq --but he had a lot of help. Richard Perle. Kenneth Pollack. Judith Miller. William Kristol. Charles Krauthammer. The owners of the New York Times. Marty Indyk. Haim Saban. Scooter Libby.
All of whom happen to be Jewish Americans. What a truly remarkable coincidence.
Haaretz and Tom Friedman noted that the Iraq war would not have occurred if not for the massive propaganda campaign of about 25 men, "most of them Jewish". An anti-semitic canard, no doubt. Strange to have it coming from an Israeli newspaper and a Jewish reporter. Ref: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280279&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Kenneth Pollack ,who warned us with dark foreboding in 2002 of Saddam's nukes, and Marty Indyk draw their paychecks from the "think tank" founded by Israeli billionaire Haim Saban. A billionaire who made pretty damm clear in a Dec 2006 Haaretz interview that his loyalty lies with Israel, that it is the duty of every American Jew to serve in the Israeli IDF, and that his duty is to ensure that American continues to protect Israel.
Given that Haim Saban dumped roughly $14 million into the Democratic Party in 2000-2002, I think its clear why so many Democratic politicans refused to challenge Bush's push to take out an enemy of Israel. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798292.html
Certainly Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, did nothing to challenge Bush's claims re Saddam's WMDs -- although there was nothing done by the Iraq Commission on PreWar Intelligence that could not have been done by Jane Harman and her staff prior to the war.
Oh, but Jane Harman has stated that when she needs to know anything, she checks with Haim Saban's "think tank". See the last paragraph (page 3) in the article at http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1549069-3,00.html
Another Remarkable coincidence -- Jane Harman is also Jewish.
Do Jewish Americans as a community deserve to be tainted by the acts of a few rich, powerful men and their whores? No. Most American Jews are not even aware of what's going on. Some of the most vocal opponents to the Iraq War are Jewish.
But understand me. If some grieving parents who lost sons in Iraq strung the cocksuckers named above from a lamppost , I would not convict those parents if I served on the jury.
Oh, but I forgot. You evidently don't give a shit about AMERICA's security. Instead, Your entire article focuses on ISRAEL's security. Tell me something. Why would a REAL American have reason to give a shit what happens to Israel?
Well, maybe you just suck Samuels, because I can read that part of the review and want to quibble with a few things, but I don't want to laugh.
If that's what you meant to say you did a poor job of it.
I also don't think that's what you meant to say in the context of the review. You said what you meant to say, and produced what would happen if you fed that book to thwe breathless, hysterical, New Anti-semitism apparatus, and the horse apples produced in the form of your essay are just what they are.
My apologies, Matt. I guess with readers this bigoted and dumb you have to keep your own standards for commentary pretty low. It's been a pleasure hanging out with you and the Evil Zionist Conspiracy crowd. Keep On Blogging!
If we are so "bigoted and dumb", why does David Samuels flee rather than refute our charges?? Maybe because he knows that we can provide ample documentation whereas he can only sprout bizarre bullshit?
Well, I learned from the hour-long NPR Frontline thing on Richard Perle that we all apparently live in Poland in 1939-1945. Forever. Especially Israelis. Because the State of Israel is the resurrection of the Jewish Pale- or maybe just the Warsaw Ghetto- and its raison d'etre is to win a retroactive war against Hitler.
Stepping back from the inanity, criminality, and insanity of that, the general conflationary trope is present all over the relevant literature including its flagship publication, Commentary magazine. David Samuels seems to think it's a reasonable theory of history. Many of us do not.
Because the State of Israel is the resurrection of the Jewish Pale- or maybe just the Warsaw Ghetto- and its raison d'etre is to win a retroactive war against Hitler
I've wondered if it wasn't so much a war against Hitler as a war against God.
I mean who *really* let everyone down. I have no idea what the provenence was (the only source I have is Eli Weisel) or if it even happened, but I've seen multiple sources talk about how prisoners of Auschwitz set up a trial against against God and condemned him for being a cheat and a sadistic bastard regarding the covenant and then had prayers the next hour.
So why not throw out everything else? Didn't do those guys any good to pray after acknowledging the obvious. Screw Him and everyone else who was talking about morality and the like.
Comments closed December 11, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
David Samuels is full of shit. American Jews did not become "full citizens" in the 1990s.
Jews who made an effort to assimilate into this country have always been accepted --from the time of the Revolution at least. Heym Solomon here in Philadelphia was a friend of James Madison. Read Section VI of the Constitution -- the one that says NO religious test shall be required to serve in the US government.
Among the most powerful people in Washington in the 1920-1940s was Bernard Baruch -- an American Jew who grew up in South Carolina.
His biography "My Own Story" talks of his childhood in Camden SC -- and mentions no Anti-Semitism. His father was a doctor on Robert E Lee's staff and Baruch tells of discovering his father's Ku Klux Klan uniform in a trunk in the attic. Baruch's views are those of a Southerner -- including the oppressive nature of the Reconstruction government run from the North and the heroic nature of Confederate leaders.
Another powerful man in Washington DC during and after WWII was Lewis Strauss, who grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. His political career was largely ended by his strong feud with fellow Jew Robert Oppenheimer --his stripping Oppenheimer of security clearances -- rather than by any anti-Semitism.
This idea that American Jews have been living in a ghetto in Brooklyn for the past 200 years is a vile insult to generations of Jewish leaders who have been well-respected by their fellow citizens.
It's amazing how some members of the Israel Lobby rationalize their disloyalty to America by promoting a picture of American Jews that is the epitome of anti-Semitism.
Posted by Don Williams | November 27, 2007 9:37 AM