I am today publicizing what I think ranks among the stupidest remarks I've ever heard in my life, even though I grew up with an intellectually challenged younger brother who said a lot of stupid things, many of them aimed at me and some of them racist.
The remark that so amazed me was, "The Jews and the Nazis deserved each other [during WWII]. It was said as the crowning statement of a series of bigoted remarks, in an omniscient tone of voice, almost singsongy, that he uses whenever discussing Jews, always derogatorily.
He justifies such remarks by claiming to have run them by Jews, in isolated instances, who agree with him.
Now from what I know, this person did not live among Jews for any extended length of time to have drawn such conclusions-- not that that would justify such bigotry, but perhaps ground it more justifiably. At one point he listed several books to justify his offensive remarks. Books. Should I have investigated eacht one? Was I lazy? I didn't have the stomach for it.
There's no arguing with this brand of offense. A friend told me that this sort of "well-read" person is common. These days I wouldn't refute that.
I have, by the way, already related to readers my own background-- Child of the Holocaust on both sides of the family, with at least five close relatives having been murdered at Auschwitz (I was named for one of them). My grandfather was taken to Dachau, a work camp, where he survived for three months before a very wealthy British relative bribed the Nazis to release him. He never discussed his heinous experience but chain-smoked himself to death for 15 years. As a child I'd stare at the tattooed numbers on his wrist as we played Scrabble together but even at 8 knew not to question him about it.
So I've been accused of being overly sensitive about this issue of anti-Semitism. Or should I say anti-Jewishness since anti-Semitism encompasses all Semites-- that is our Arab brethren, and it is discussions of the Gaza atrocities that provoke the abhorrent comments cited above.
I grew up in a minor key, surrounded by first-generation victims of anti-Jewishness. We celebrated Jewish holidays but my takeaway was the tragedy of being Jewish. My other grandfather told me about bullying he received from anti-Jewish Lithuanians as a child.
So my early adulthood was spent exploring other religions after I had the lightening realization, or so I thought, that I didn't have to be Jewish. Well, I realized eventually, you can shed the religion but not the tragic culture. (Quakerism made the most sense to me.)
There's more about my alienation, but this entry is about the stupidity of people who don't understand that EXTREMISM and testosterone-induced resorting to VIOLENCE as a political solution are at fault, certainly not Judaism or Jews.
At age 24, I impressed a Protestant minister when in the course of a soul-searching conversation I told him that to be Jewish means to have suffered. Chosen people? For what? There are positive answers and I hope that somehow I have exemplified and actuated one of them, to be a light among people and to do good.
I asked another Protestant minister how I can justify an existence I owe to the atrocities perpetrated by Hitler. He told me that this lent great significance in my life.
I've had a multitude of experiences among clergy and people of other religions and married [subsequently divorced] a man with a Protestant upbringing. I used to ask Christian friends if they'd shelter me in the event of another Holocaust. What could they answer but yes?
Well I didn't mean to plunge into too much introspection and too many confessions, but there it is. To be Jewish, for me, means to have suffered, among other things but chiefly. And so anti-Jewishness rankles profoundly. I hope that my claim that it is entirely groundless is convincing. The present horrors occurring in Gaza and Israel are largely the fault of a would-be Moses, Netanyahu, the embodiment of testosterone and extremism run amok. Violence committed against innocent people is dead wrong and totally unjustifiable. If there were a way to eliminate politics from the world "?
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