lavendertook | Identifying Antisemitism in the Wild: A Field Guide

I'm not certain why so few people involved are seeing the antisemitism* going on in this thread, so I'm going to try to break down here what I saw and why it was disturbing to me. First of all, here is the passage in question that the commenter,

stefaneus, made antisemitic remarks about. It's from an essay by Jewish lesbian singer Alix Dobkin**:

This brings to mind an incident occurring twenty years ago in Europe. At a concert in Zurich I identified myself as Jewish, whereupon a small group of women got up and left the theater. Why? They didn't say, but we can guess.

My deal with myself was that if I agreed to tour Germany and Switzerland it would be on condition that I declare my Jewishness at every show. Otherwise I could not have endured setting foot on those killing fields. But I was as unprepared for the shockingly defensive reaction that statement would provoke in my audience as they were to hear it. Naively assuming that German Dykes were as used to discussing sensitive race issues as we USA veterans were, it never occurred to me how personally they would take this (seemingly) simple declaration. If I hadn't immediately calmed my audience with friendly assurances they would have shut down and shut me out, and by the time I reached Switzerland I understood that going public as a Jew required the following instant affirmations:

1) that I did not believe in God
2) that I did not necessarily support Israel's every action, and
3) that I did not blame any of them for the holocaust

These three disclaimers usually relaxed most of the crowd enough so that they could sit through my show without excessive distress. Passionate English and German post concert dialogues proved wrenchingly difficult, but they moved everyone forward, and we were all glad to have stuck with it.

The passage comes from this site that

delphyne_ linked to--and yes, I know the larger focus of that site is controversial, but I will not discuss any of those issues now in order to keep the focus on the particular issue I am addressing here. Now here is

stefaneus's comment upon the above passage:

Thank you for burning away my retinas by showing me an American lesbian who accuses German and Swiss lesbians of anti-Semitism because they are, understandably, afraid that someone will play the 'you-did-the-Holocaust' card even though, at that time, none of them were yet even of adult age. Seriously, thank you. And I didn't even got to the core of the article, yet.

(under breath) Stupid American (/under breath)

First of all, we don't have just any kind of American lesbian here, we have a Jewish American lesbian, and for some reason he elides that. If he drew attention to her Jewishness, it would be more clear his reaction was antisemitic, and I suspect that is why he elided it. I also suspect it's himself that he's trying to keep the clarity from, so he doesn't have to recognize this in himself because superficially he knows antisemitism is wrong. But he sure takes offense to Jewish needs to name our history. And that in itself is a form of antisemitism: He elides the specificity of our history and our existence in not making any distinction that this is a Jew, not just an American, who is going into a space that is very threatening-feeling for her for the little reason that 6 million people sharing her Jewish identity were killed there.

Playing "the 'you did the Holocaust' card.

Need I explain that there is a spot on the antisemitism bingo board for "you're playing the Holocaust card?" There is; it is that common an antisemitic attack. A couple of its cousins are the "race card" and the "gay card." To call a Jew's mentioning of the Holocaust a "card" trivializes our need to name the recent trauma in our history, the fact that most all of us, American Jews, as well as European Jews and Jews world-wide, have lost branches of our families in the Holocaust. Many Holocaust survivors are still alive today--we are not even a generation past direct, live, experience. To trivialize this real experience of loss and trauma for Jews IS antisemitism.

However, the thing here is that Dobkin was merely claiming that she was Jewish, a Jew standing on the ground where Jews are missing because they were killed off, and so the commenter is telling us that just mentioning she is a Jew is in itself playing the Holocaust card. He is saying that any mention of being Jewish is an accusation against the Germans and Swiss, and it is offensive to name herself there because it will remind them that their nation killed Jews--so just keep a don't tell policy in place so you don't make the Germans uncomfortable--good one

stefaneus. And thank goodness he can't speak for all the Germans today who don't share his defensive antisemitism.

The commenter states with great empathy, and identification which he explains in a subsequent comment, that the German and Swiss audience will "understandably" fear the terrible use of that almighty and mean little card thing, that card thing representing the person in the victimized position pointing out the unjustness of their victimization by that audience's home team (even though all she is doing here is stating she is Jewish). You know, I'm sorry, but on the guilt thing, the feeling bad about what your people unjustly did to another: decent people live with guilt and transform it, by owning it and using it to grow and make amends. It's not a bad thing--like Huey's thinking here in a Boondocks strip from a couple of days ago.

To be proud of your culture, you also have to own the terrible things it participated in. And not deny speech to those to whom the terrible things were done, but to listen and honor them, no matter how fucking tired you are of it already. Because you owe that--you live as you do because our relatives don't. You don't get to decide when we stop talking about it. And to begrudge that, is to re-victimize the survivors. As these women 20 years ago were doing by forcing Dobkin to placate them, and as this commenter did today in sharing in their defensive antisemitism.

This blaming the victim for the guilt you feel towards them, or having the nerve to remind you of that guilt--so not cool. And in this case, so antisemitic. But that's what this commenter is about here. I'm grateful to

delphyne_ for being a good ally and calling him on this.

Then in response to this thread, and subsequent discussion of it elsewhere, we have this lovely antisemitic post here from

azzy23:

I'm just going to throw this one out there, and you're welcome to unfriend me, or think I'm an antisemite or whatever, but here ya go...

If you ever pull the "You disagree with me! That makes you a Nazi/Anti-semitic" card in a debate in my blog, we're going to have an issue. I'm tired of this one, seriously. Sometimes, and hold on to your socks kids... sometimes Jewish people are incorrect. Sometimes Israel does things which are wrong (in a morals/ethics sense), and pointing out that you don't agree with their take on something does NOT make you a Nazi or an anti-semite, and I won't play that.

I fully agree with her that sometimes Jews are incorrect, and Israel does some really wrongful things ~~she said, soothing her audience~~, but deciding a Jew calling out antisemitic speech is playing a card is antisemitic to the max, as I've discussed above, but this time the card is in reference to the naming of antisemitic speech, which she is denying to Jews. What we have here in her post is a bigoted, defensive response dismissing a Jew's right to name her oppression. And her antisemitic post even encourages one of her posters to express their defensive racism and complain about ye old race card--hey, collect them all, kids. Yup, it spreads when left unchecked.

So that's the gardens we're weeding here, people. Call them on it when you see it--don't let it go unchecked--someone who can't speak up may be hurting from it.

In another post some time later, I'll get into some of the issues of contention on gender identity, rad feminism, and transgender politics that were the larger focus of the post this thread was a part of. But in this entry, I just want us to focus on the problem of the antisemitism, as expressed in the comments above.

Any questions? Thoughts?

*Oxford and American Heritage Dictionaries encourage the use of a hyphen, as in "anti-semitism", but I don't think it's necessary and am encouraging the language to change here--language evolution: it's a DIY thing. But don't try this on term papers, kids.

**I saw her in concert about 20 years ago.(-:

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Date: 2007-12-13 12:05 am (UTC)

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