seven Chanukah candles outside the Polish centre last night
Last night the Palestine Solidarity Campaign held its Winter Concert at The Polish Centre in Hammersmith, London.
The concert consisted of classical piano compositions, Palestinian music and a couple of short plays, one called Love Amidst the War and Isiah and the other called Seven Jewish Children.
Complaints had been made to the Polish Centre about the latter play on the basis that it is anti-Semitic, which it is.
And for a Polish community centre to show an anti-Semitic play when three million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in Poland made the event doubly insulting.
In fairness the centre probably didn’t know the nature of the booking and once booked it was too late. Last night it issued a statement distancing itself from the event and racism in general.
In 10 short minutes the play portrays Jews as being transformed from being murdered into being child killers themselves.
This is the old anti-Semitic myth updated for modern day audiences and the play is performed many times throughout the year for free.
With this in mind about 15 hardy activists journeyed to west London in freezing conditions to stand outside the Polish centre.
They lit seven Chanukah candles, ate doughnuts and handed leaflets out to passers-by.
Lots of people stopped to ask what was going on and were given a full explanation of the nature of the play that was being staged by the PSC inside the centre.
The irony was that many of those who had paid the £15 to go in and watch Seven Jewish Children would probably have been outside demonstrating against it had it been staged by the BNP.
But when it comes to supporting the Palestinians anything goes, including anti-Semitic plays.
Although last night’s protest outside the Polish centre was relatively small it was effective with the Chanukah candles bringing some welcome light to a very dark evening.
(Thanks to The Party Store, 62 Edgware Way, Edgware T:02089589797 for supplying the candles and to the CST, the ZF and the police.)
A protestor makes his feelings known outside the Polish centre.
The Polish Centre where the PSC staged Seven Jewish Children.
RichardMillett's Blog 
Shame on the PSC – but we expect it from them
Shame on the Polish Centre!
A brilliant turnout by the Israel Supporters. The PSC neo-facsists were gobsmacked and could only look in wonder at our flags, posters and candles not to mention our loud megaphone which shamed them and the Polish centre for their anti-Semitism! How powerless they were to stop us, how effective our protest. “The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps”
Where is the condemnation from the Polish Ambassador? She was contacted by me and others.
I wrote to the Polish Ambassador and the Polish Centre – no response from either.
Cowards!
I did receive an email reply from the Polish Centre 2-3 weeks ago. I then phoned their manager, Nowak something or other. He promised to ‘think about it’.
I used to live in Ealing, and know some decent Polish people who live there. I will contact them and ask them to protest and to boycott these sick people.
But when it comes to supporting the Palestinians anything goes, including anti-Semitic plays.
thanks!
I am sure the heat of your enthusaism for Israel and justice overcame the shivering and the cold heartless Pal.s
I would urge everyone to phone Nowak and express disgust.
about the BNP. Anti Zionism affords antisemites total cover. We MUST find an intellectual argument to destroy this.
The “Never Again” poster looks like something from the Kach party. What were the Kahanists doing there?
Sadly, I’m pretty sure the Polish centre knew exactly what it was hosting. This is a shame especially after the Polish president had recently invited the Chief Rabbi there for the Hannukah candle lighting at the presidential palace.
Also, who is to judge whether the play was anti-Semetic or not? Wouldn’t it be wiser to let people decide for themselves?
No problem with that, Dan. However, an anti-Semite won’t admit that it is.
“I am sure the heat of your enthusaism for Israel and justice overcame the shivering and the cold heartless Pal.s” –
How easy for you Medad in the serenity of your Samarian sun!
The plight of our Anglo-Jewish kinsmen is far frostier:
“I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
Dan, have you read the play?
Have you read Mein Kampf? Will you take my word for it that it’s antisemitic?
I am minded to write to the Polish president. Someone who speaks Polish could write to all large Polish papers.
Go on, write Yoni. You’ve always been very eloquent and I’m sure they’d understand your Aramaic. Just be careful with the old spelling.
As I have said before, tosser: go and bugger yourself sideways.
Goldberg: “who is to judge whether the play was anti-Semetic ”
“For the first time in my career as a critic, I am moved to say about a work at a major production house that this is an antisemitic play.”
http://www.thejc.com/arts/theatre-reviews/review-seven-jewish-children
So **** off
What’s this guys problem?
You are the one with the problem.
On the seventh day of Chanukkah as well. Surely that was no coincidence! These savages cannot get any lower.
Well done to those demonstrators. But I don’t understand what is meant by “Palestinian music” in the introduction. I think that so-called “Palestinian culture” is indistinguishable from Arab culture.
Same goes for so-called “Palestinian food”, ” Palestinian dancing” & all the other nonsense one sees advertised at these events.
Goldberg, if you can’t spell anti-Semitic then pehaps you wouldn’t recognize it.
The people protesting were not Kahanists. So why claim they are? Unless you find the image of a fist smashing a swastika to be “Kahanist”.
Thank goodness there are people ready to stand up and fight anti-semitism. And who are not afraid to call things by their right names!
Reviews of the play are available and its inaccuracies and disgraceful dialogue are well documented.
Adam, English is not my first language, so apologies if a slight mis-spelling causes you to pop your heart. Get a life. The poster looks like a lot like the Kach party emblem, which is also of a fist. Why are you getting so defensive? Were there any Kahanists there?
A few mates of mine passed by and said that they saw a large Brazilian and Portugese flag. What does that have to do with Israel or Palestine?
People should be allowed to make up their own minds regarding the play. No one has the right to decide for me if its anti-semItic.
I think the protest was wrong, but people are still free to do it, as we live in a democracy.
“I think the protest was wrong, but people are still free to do it, as we live in a democracy”
Not very strong on logic, are you? It’s OK to stage a blatantly antisemitic play, but it’s wrong to protest about it …
And then screeching about a flag that may or may not look like a Kach flag (and if it is, so what?), but basically is about smashing Nazism. Yes, I can see how some people might have an issue with that.
You sound like a far left lunatic. As someone far wiser than you and with 100 times more integrity has said, take a flying f***.
Dan,
Don’t worry. He has neither education nor common manners and talks in that way to everyone. I believe it was Eric Hoffer who said that rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.
He may think he’s a Zionist, but he’s a disgrace. As an Israeli I’m ashamed to have people of his caliber “on our side”. If you inadvertently tread on Yoni, you’ should quickly wipe the sole of your shoe on some damp grass to elude the stench of fecal matter.
All that having been said, like a clock that has stopped, but tells the time correctly twice a day, he might not be wrong on this occasion. If Richard’s report of the play is accurate, and we have no reason to doubt it, this does sound like good old-fashioned Anti-Semitism:
“In 10 short minutes the play portrays Jews as being transformed from being murdered into being child killers themselves.”
As for the Never Again slogan, I really can’t see the problem. If it is morally correct, why do you care who said it first? If it’s immoral, what does it matter whose words they were?
If I were to tell you that Never Again was among other things a 1916 movie starring Oliver Hardy, would you feel more comfortable?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Again_(1916_film)
Goldberg, you’re not very bright are you? Going by your logic, no-one should ever protest against anything, because it entails “deciding for you”.
That’s your contribution? Why don’t you read the bloody “play” and then come back and tell us what you think? The entire script is available, if you bothered to look before making fatuous comments. On second thoughts, don’t bother.
@Adam: “Going by your logic, no-one should ever protest against anything, because it entails “deciding for you”.
It is obvious that there is something blocking the path between your eyes and your mind Adam.
Read this again: I think the protest was wrong, but people are still free to do it, as we live in a democracy.
On second thought, don’t bother.
when the play came out first the text was available somewhere on the net. As happens to be my habit, I read first and judge second. So here’s my conclusion of way back then:
If that play isn’t anti-semitic then anti-semitism is a mirage
Dan,
What is wrong with “Never Again” and a fist smashing a swastika? How could you have a problem with that? Would you prefer the alternative?
Whose side are you on? Are you a Judenrat?
Goldberg, so you are against the protest, even though you know nothing of the play. That makes perfect sense.
Oh, and that flag looks a bit like the Kahanists.
That’s your meaningless, brainless “contribution” – saying precisely nothing about anything.
To Dan Goldberg et al:
English is not my mother tongue either, but I taught myself how to write and spell! With a name like yours, you seem to be undergoing an identity crisis – all you see is Kahanists in front of your eyes but you are totally blind to the anti-Semitic, Hamas-supporting, neo-Fascist PSC, who would hardly stage a philo-Semitic play in a Polish club of all places.
The place is frequented by what remains of the chauvinistic ‘old guard’ who live in a time-warp, dreaming of the pre-war Poland run by a clique of army colonels. The Poland where Endecja hooligans modelling themselves on Nazi storm-troopers barred entry into Jewish shops, very much like the PSC is doing today outside Ahava.
And for your information: ‘Never Again’ was coined by us survivors when we solemnly pledged to ‘Never Again’ allow ourselves to be led to the slaughter. Am Israel Chai!
Still, no one has answered my question about the Portuguese/Brazilian flag that was displayed at the demo? Were any Portuguese or Brazilian groups there too?
Dan, there were no groups. There were 15 protesters who all came of their own accord bringing with them what they wanted so that they could protest in their own individual way. I don’t know why any such flag was there. Why didn’t your friends go over and ask? Maybe whoever was holding it was making the statement that the people of Portugal/Brazil stand with Israel. Who knows.
Last night I looked up the play on YouTube and watched it. I’m sorry, but I don’t think it was anti-Semitic.
As a religious Right wing Zionist and West Bank settler, I guess I found it to be anti-Zionist, but I’m sure that many other Israelis would not agree with me and it was definitely the kind of thing that you could see any day of the week here in the Holy Land.
Of course I acknowledge your right to demonstrate against the play and I’m proud of you all for doing so, but I hope you were demonstrating against its message and not against anyone’ else’s right to stage it or see it.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that is a fine Palestinian propaganda tool (can’t do much about that), it does challenge us to reexamine many of the clichés that we often toss off use without sufficient consideration, and in that sense it is not without its merits.
Daniel, so you think it is ok to show this the length and breadth of the UK including, I believe, schools? It is ok to say Jews are child killers, liars and racists because it keeps Jews honest?
Daniel Marks is a disgusting bully who stalks me from thread to thread, mocking my Aramaic because I once admitted that it’s not as good as my other languages, sniping at me like the coward he is from behind the bikeshed about my supposedly inferior scholarship, which he thinks is a terribly witty thing to do because his mummy told him once that he is as clever as Einstein. His mental and emotional development having stopped at the age of 11, he still believes her. That is also why he thinks that insults directed at other posters involving penises are the height of sophistication. And then this keyboard bully and utter waste of protoplasm whines about other people’s ‘rudeness’.
“Last night I looked up the play on YouTube and watched it. I’m sorry, but I don’t think it was anti-Semitic”
That makes perfect sense: DM is too thick to see the blatant antisemitism of talking about JEWS – mind you, not Israelis, JEWS – as being fundamentally all about killing Arab children. Not about regaining their homeland and defending themselves against mass slaughter. Oh, no: JEWS are all about drinking children’s blood.
And this shit has the brass neck to call himself a Zionist.
Thanks. I just saw the play on YouTube. I didn’t see anything anti-semItic about it. Nothing in it even raised an eyebrow. Obviously, from this thread, some people find it, though I think you’re over reacting.
People have a right to disagree with it, but they should make up their own minds, not be prevented from seeing it by those with a mindset to prevent others from deciding for themselves.
For those (no names) who wish to prevent others from making up their own minds and prevent others from deciding for themselves, North Korea is lovely this time of year.
Here here Dan, these knee jerk reactionaries really do need to get a grip, their warped minds need to accept that the vast majority of those critical of Israel’s actions are normal every day people who will speak out in the face of injustice and oppression.
The term is ‘hear, hear’, you illiterate antisemitic joke.
The warped mind is yours. The vast majority of those ‘critical of Israel’s actions’, the usual figleaf of antisemites, fall into the following categories: 1. Permanently ‘angry’ Muslims who hate Jews and anybody else who doesn’t fall over backwards and begs to be raped; 2. Far Left antisemites; 3. Far Right antisemites; 4. useful idiots who want to be with-it, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, ya’ani.
We know you fall into at least one of those categories. To save everyone time, why not tell us which one(s)?
Doh! Yoni I think you made the first ever correct call, but you’re still a f***wit
An antisemitic fuckwit insults me: I must be doing something right.
I might also add that I’m a Zionist too.
“I didn’t see anything anti-semItic about it. ”
The Stuermer was just a jolly magazine for boy scouts.
“For those (no names) who wish to prevent others from making up their own minds and prevent others from deciding for themselves”
Nobody is doing anything of the sort. You are talking nonsense.
“I might also add that I’m a Zionist”
Last time I checked, the word you are looking for was spelled i-d-i-o-t.
http://thejc.com/news/uk-news/42350/psc-play-polish-centre-sparks-angry-demo
How angry can a demo of 15 people be?
You really have no clue about anything, do you?
mostly and dan, if there was a similar play called Seven Muslim Children on similar lines would you not feel it to be islamaphobic? Do you really believe it isn’t racist in the slightest?
Richard,
Islam isn’t a race, and ‘Islamophobia’ is an invented word for a virtually non-existent problem in 2010 Britain. It is the usual shameless exploitation by Islamists and their useful idiot hangers-on of the history of oppression of Jews. Just like the pathologically shameless ‘Naqbah’.
If you were to say ‘Seven Arab Children’, that of course would be a different matter.
Okay Richard, I’m not sure how au fait you are with Israeli culture, but, as I’ve said, there was really nothing that you don’t hear said by Left Wing Israelis every day of the week.
By way of example I just returned from a very pleasant picnic in the Netanya area with Nick Kopaloff et al. On the way home my 11-year-old watched Waltzing with Bashir, an Israeli movie and Oscar nominee in which we saw Israeli soldiers machine gunning an innocent Lebanese family to ribbons. It was far worse than anything in Seven Muslim Children.
My point is that the test of free speech is not in tolerating views that you agree with or you believe are legitimate, but in being able to put up with those that you disagree with and make you want to vomit. Talking of vomit I have chosen to ignore our atheist Aramaic authority’s latest barrage of BS. I would just mention that today I saw Kopaloff make a fellow picnicker pick up his dog’s droppings, and I thought of him.
“…if there was a similar play called Seven Muslim Children on similar lines would you not feel it to be islamaphobic?”
No. Not even if I thought Islamophobia exists (which I don’t). I would defend your right to produce such a play.
Again, don’t get me wrong. I do not agree with the play, I support your demonstration and am incredibly proud of you guys for holding it. Your victory will be in proving to your fellow countrymen that the play is a lie, not in having its showings cancelled.
PS
“Daniel Marks is a disgusting bully who stalks me from thread to thread, mocking my Aramaic….” – Someone change his nappy and put him to bed.
Daniel, so because some left-wing Jews say similar things it can’t anti-Semitic? And also where would you draw the line? I mean what is your definition of anti-Semitism and do you think anti-Semitic plays should be shown in the UK? And if not anti-Semitic it is certainly racist against all Israelis saying you are all child murderers and liars. Is it ok to show that in British schools also? Please explain.
“Some left-wing Jews” is both correct and incorrect. They are ‘some’ in that very few say that Israel is behaving like the Nazis. And they are not ‘left-wing’ in any meaningful sense, not in the sense that genuine Socialists and Social Democrats are (to various degrees) left wing. These are people at the very extreme edge of Israel-hatred who have allied with totalitarian Fascists of various hues, just as they have done in the UK. And they are disgusting antisemites, whether or not they are Jewish, whether or not they claim to be (but still are not) ‘left wing’.
QED.
And my apologies to disgusting bullies.
And while we’re at it: this is the illiterate clown who desperately tries to poke fun at my grammar, in a sentence whose syntax is hilariously wrong (the one with “use construct”, look it up on the Richard Falk thread). The same blithering idiot who mocks my reading comprehension skills, but thinks that I’ve apologised to him when I did no such thing.
You have to pity such halfwits.
And talking of reading comprehension issues: DM, the 5%-wit, keeps claiming that I have boasted of my Aramaic scholarship. In fact, he got it arse-backwards as usual; I said that my Aramaic is not very good at all.
So, which is it, DM: are you illiterate, a shameless liar or both?
“I said that my Aramaic is not very good at all.” Yoni (Dec 9)
“…and this, after I’d told you that I’d studies the Bible cover to cover in the original Hebrew (and Aramaic, with a degree of difficulty, where relevant)” Yoni (Dec 2)
Does ” a degree of difficulty” mean “not very good at all not very good at all” in Aramaic?
Did you ever reach Proverbs 6:16-20 in your cover to cover, Hebrew, English, Aramaic studies?
“There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”
Five out of six can’t be bad. Yech! I think I just trod on something.
Now he’ll cry that I’m bullying him again.
You can’t help it. You are a bully.
Bullies, well, bully. That’s what you are all about: arrogance and bullying. You think that anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant – and, indeed, dreck – whose only knowledge comes from googling. After all, they disagree with you. It stands to reason that they are ignorant.
Yes, ‘a degree of difficulty’ is the self-deprecating way that someone writing within the conventions of British discourse says ‘I am not very good at it’.
You are the very definition of a playground bully: arrogant, thick, constitutionally unable to comprehend that not everyone must think as you do.
Yoni with nappy, ha! ha! Maybe some smelley bottoms.
I also hasn’t like the play, Just a older woman is talking! Tell her, tell her.
Smelley bottoms Yoni is right! 🙂
as so many of the gentlemen I admire around currently I like to post a poem I must have written at the height of our Ahava-poetry slam and totally forgotten about it. Now that it has surfaced I’d really appreciate the verdict of y’all. After all it is rare for me at least to find myself amidst such a cluster of savvy linguists:
here it is:
If the mating season looms
and you seem condemn to dooms
don’t despair und start to hope
not from surgeon or from pope
if photoshop won’t do the trick
neither facelift nor a wig
round the corner winks salvation
as AHAVA is pure elation.
Once applied and well rubbed in
from the nose down to the shin
makes you shine and promisses
life in everlasting blissesses
Actually I think it is so brillant that I have my doubts that I really can be the author 😉
I read the JC article about the demo/play and was intrigued by what I read:
At the demonstration, Mr Hoffman said: “I would ask the Polish Centre if they would be ready to host a performance by the British National Party or English Defence League. The venue should be mindful of having this kind of play here.”
After speaking to and emailing a few in the know, I understand that at least one member of the EDL was at the demo alongside protestors, as the flag of Brazil/Portugal is often flown at EDL demos, especially by one of its sections that calls itself “Jewish”. So why would Jonathan Hoffman make such an absurd statement?
Dan
please have mercy on me
your remarks are becoming more and more mystifying to me
I am of the a kilo of beef makes for a good soup sort, would you mind explaining your stuff in those terms?
what would be wrong if a member of the EDL wanted to protest that viewed from a purely aesthetic/artistic point of view terrible play? I’d salute him for his good taste.
Are you trying to make laughter Silke?
I’m not too knowledgable about the EDL, but I am aware that many people thought it a racist, right wing organisation?
Please correct me if I am wrong?
ah thanks Dan for confirming my guess
from the first I “suspected” that you are a person who adjusts his opinitons to “many people”.
Goldberg, what a surprise. Having said you were against the protest, despite your ignorance of the play, you now say you have seen it, and declare that it isn’t antisemitic – thus “confirming” that you were right all along.
Nothing antisemitic? Really? Alleging that Jews raise their children on lies and hatred?
And who the hell is dictating what you can and can’t see? Yet again you make this accusation. But if cultural centres are going to show Jew hating plays, as part of the demonisation of Israel campaign (there is such a campaign by the PSC – are you aware of it?) then YOU should be protesting against it, Goldberg, not siding with those who would commit genocide against the Jews.
And bringing up the EDL – if ever there was an irrelevance, (such as your poster obsession, again borne of ignorance) – you found it.
Er, I think “Dan” knows the PSC very well. He is a member. All this rubbish about contacting his friends and sending emails blah blah blah. He was at the concert looking out at the protest and will be outside Ahava on saturday.
Look after watching it, I’ve read and reread (twice altogether) the play.
Click to access churchill.pdf
It is NOT against all Jews because they are Jews, but against the Israeli/Zionist historical narrative as is often delivered, especially by Right wing Zionists like myself. With the exception of the bit about water, which I’ve never heard anyone say, almost any line of second part (post-Holocaust) the play could have been said by one of us.
The annoyance is in hearing the other side building a mosaic out of our cliches and using it against us. It’s certainly an effective piece of anti-Israel propaganda, but it falls short of being an attack on Jews because they are Jews and thus, cannot fairly be called Anti-Semitic, in my opinion.
The worst part is the ending, when the woman gets carried away with:
“Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we
wont stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead
policemen, tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her. Don’t tell her that.”
Here she sounds like an extremist nutter, but truthfully we have them too. I’ve never heard anyone say, “we’re better haters” but I think I have heard most of the other statements at one time or another, not always in those exact words, obviously.
Clearly, to portray an image that all Israelis think like the woman in the play would be grossly inaccurate. Israel’s friends’ job is to explain (in Yoni’s case in Aramaic) that there are a few extremists in Israel with such views, there are also extremists on the other side who would applaud the play, and many, many differing opinions in the middle. That is what makes Israel into a pluralistic Western democracy where everyone has a right to express, even annoying, opinions, and everyone has an equal right to demonstrate against the expression of such opinions too.
Finally, I teach in one of, if not the most extreme Yeshiva High School in Israel. By way of example Baruch Goldstein’s son was my student as are the sons of most prominent rabbis and settler leaders. I would happily show them the play to the 12th graders as a stimulus for discussion, again, not because I agree with it, but because I don’t.
PS Silke,
What is a “a kilo of beef makes for a good soup sort”?
I wonder which part of the word ‘Jewish’ in ‘JEWISH children’ is causing DM such horrendous intellectual difficulties. It doesn’t say ‘Israeli Zionist’. It says ‘Jewish’. The author is condemned from her own filthy mouth.
Either DM is being deliberately obtuse and perverse, or he really is obtuse.
Daniel
the one with the beef and the soup is a common German retort, if pundits tell you from on high all sorts of things they believe and because they are so super little me has to believe them that their convoluted stuff makes sense. i.e. it is a way of suggesting that the emperor has no clothes.
“Clearly, to portray an image that all Israelis think like the woman in the play would be grossly inaccurate.” Isn’t that by extension racist? To say all Muslims or Iranians or Arabs think of Jews as “filth” and justify killing Jewish children would be totally racist, wouldn’t it? I ask you again, are you comfortable with a show that demonises all Jews and/or Israelis and portrays them condoning the killing of children and portrays them starving the Palestinians of water while you swim in it being shown in UK schools and theatres? And please don’t just respond that it is the Jewish community’s task to tell the truth. That is obvious.
Well, not quite, since Muslims are not a race. Otherwise, spot on. He simply refuses to see it. Maybe it makes him feel terribly, terribly morally superior to refuse to accept that this is a racist attack on Jews. He has learned nothing by living in Israel, where sane and intelligent Jews no longer meekly accept that their natural role is to be a whipping boy, take the beating, keep silent and like it.
“…are you comfortable with a show that demonises all Jews and/or Israelis and portrays them condoning the killing of children and portrays them starving the Palestinians of water while you swim in it being shown in UK schools and theatres?” –
Firstly, neither am I a theater critic, nor can I believe that I’ve become an apologist for an anti-Israel play, but, I don’t think that anything in it implied that its writer is saying that all Israelis or Jews think like the woman, do you?
There are people in Israel with her views and there are those with more extreme views. There are also many, in my opinion the overwhelming majority, who do not agree with much that she said. If I’m honest with myself, I think I agree with about 50%.
I do not feel comfortable with anyone being exposed to any views that I consider anti-Israel anti-Semitic. If the truth be told, I’m not that happy about your support for the “Two-State Solution” which in my mind is not only no solution, but a recipe for disaster. Incidentally, I’m not comfortable with my fellow Jews desecrating the shabbat and a million other things too.
However, what can I do? Until the messiah comes I don’t think that everybody will agree with me about everything, and either I must try and impose my will on them, or agree to live together in a state of disagreement (“state” in both senses of the word).
I say again that while the views expressed were vexatious, they represented a critique of Zionism, and while I fundamentally disagree with this critique, it is legitimate. This critique is shared by almost all Arab members of the Knesset and large parts of the Israeli Left wing including both Zionists and Post-Zionists.
Amos Oz is one of our most celebrated authors and as far back as the early 80s he has a supposedly real-life Israeli Jew saying:
“Call Israel by any name you like, call it a Judeo-Nazi state as does Leibowitz. Why not? Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint. I don’t care whether I am like Ghadafi. I am not after the admiration of the gentiles.”
“Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don’t care. And I don’t mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial..”
Does reading Oz make me uncomfortable? Of course it does. Making people comfortable is not the aspiration of political literature and never has been. . If you want comfort, you watch “Friends”. The goal of such literature is to challenge and us, maybe even to bring about change. The fact we don’t agree with something does not make it less legitimate.
Again, don’t get me wrong. I support your demonstration and I consider your viewpoint wholly reasonable too.
I’d be interested to hear the opinions of other Israelis in this matter. Yisrael Medad’s revisionist and settler credentials are impeccable – I believe he was on the deck of the Altelana with Begin. Maybe he should weigh in here.
Well, Uri Avneri was a hero of the War of Independence, and later became an apologist for antisemites. Doesn’t prove a thing. It’s the fallacy of appealing to authority, in this case more spurious than usual.
The play was not produced in a vacuum. It is part of an ongoing onslaught on Israel by what is laughingly called the British ‘intelligentsia’, the majority of whom have nil knowledge of the ME, its history and even basic geography. The majority of them read the same papers, believe every word spouted by the Guardian and the BBC – both of which have been antisemitic for years and lie brazenly all the time about basic historical facts, and when they don’t lie they distort by omission, juxtaposition, smears and so on. They subscribe to the same political dogmas without engaging their critical faculties, dogmas arising in many important instances from profound ignorance and racism, and when not on either than on the basest political expediency. This is very much the case where Israel is concerned. They read the LRB and the New Statesman (which had an antisemitic cover illustration lifted straight from the Stuermer not that long ago, and the same goes for many cartoons in the Guardian). I won’t even start on the Independent.
In this atmosphere, the play encapsulates the racist opinions of a swathe of so-called educated people, in reality ‘media’ and political apparatchiks with very little learning living in a bubble centred on Westminster and extending east to Hoxton, west to Holland Park, north to Hampstead and south to Clapham Common. They are engaged in virulent non-stop vilification of Israel on the face of it, but in reality of the right of Jews to live freely in their own national homeland. That is why its antisemitic.
Plays are not police reports. Individuals in plays represent points of view. The views expressed by Jews AS JEWS in this piece of political propaganda – since it’s not really a play at all but a smear campaign – are one-sided, one-dimensional, extreme to the nth degree, with no balance and nuance. As such, the author – who is firmly part of the aforementioned bubble – presents a picture of Jews AS JEWS as blood-thirsty by nature, by upbringing, genetically as Jews (which is all but spelled out in so many words). A picture of ALL JEWS. If that is not antisemitic, then the Stuermer was not antisemitic.
There may well be some ‘Judeo-Nazis’ in Israel. Then there are also Palestinian and other Arab Muslim/Islamic-Nazis, though none make an appearance in 7JC.
That is the point.
And an excellent one it is.
Along with the other one, that ALL Jews are presented as Juedo-Nazis.
Thanks for letting us know about “Dan Goldberg” Richard – a member of the PSC promoting antisemitic plays.
What a toad – pretending to be something he isn’t. Well, I guess his intellectual honesty is as corrupted as his personal honesty.
This is the reply I received from the Polish Embassy’s press office. Note the reference to the Guardian article:
Dear Madam
I’d like to thank you for bringing it to our attention. With reference to your letter, I would like to inform you that the Polish Social and Cultural Association Ltd. was founded by and has since been run by the Polish community in the United Kingdom and is completely autonomous of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London. The Embassy has therefore no right of intervention in internal decisions made by the Centre with regards to the production of Seven Jewish Children.
Nevertheless, I would like to point that Caryl Churchill’s play relates to the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and, in light of this, its content can be considered critical towards Israeli policies. The play has been staged at the Royal Court Theatre, but definately it is controversial (please read eg. “The Guardian”)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/apr/25/israel-gaza-play-caryl-churchill-website
Kind regards
Robert Szaniawski
Press Counsellor
Embassy of the Republic of Poland
Yeah, the Guardian is an honest broker in this matter. And a pink elephant just flew past my window.
That last paragraph implies support for the “play” – the insinuation being that it isn’t antisemitic, merely critical of Israeli policy. As if the title doesn’t give it away. How insulting.
Yes, on the one hand it’s nothing to do with them, and on the other it’s “Stop complaining already, bloody Joos”.
I was nowhere near the PSC event. I don’t even live in the UK!
However, an honest and truthful letter. Sounds like a sensible human being to me. LONG LIVE POLAND!
What a ghastly little antisemitic tosser you are.
Shabbat Shalom Yoni!
Why isn’t a nice Jewish boy like you not observing the Shabbat?
And it’s any of your effing business because …?
The fact that this is nothing but antisemitic propaganda is demonstrated also by the fact that its shameless creator allows it to be performed in return for a donation to Gaza. You know, the Gaza that never did anything to those Jewish stormtroopers (other than treat their children at Gaza’s hospitals, of course) and whose inhabitants starve to death at a rate of several hundreds of people per day, that lacks a single swimming pool never mind food stores, and that doesn’t have a single relief agency to help it and never has had one. In other words, the Gaza that exists solely in the minds of antisemites as a tool to use against Jews.
dan goldberg is bruce levy and i claim my prize
Yoni, there is a performance called “Seven Days From a Gaza Diary”. Did you ever see it?
In December 2008 and January 2009, Khulood Ghanem, a 27 years old woman, kept a diary and described the ordeal in Gaza during the Israeli military assault. The diary was adapted and turned into a performance piece for three voices.
I would highly recommend that you see it or hear it. Would that be more acceptable to you than Seven Jewish Children?
Who’s Bruce Levy?
Goldberg, bugger off you sad Jewbaiter.
Goldberg, try Seven Palestinian Children.
Ah, yes, the unprovoked Israeli ‘assault’ on a peaceful population engaged entirely and exclusively in building a better future for their children as they have done for the past 62 years, and allowing their Jewish neighbours to do the same, in return for which those Joos launched an unprovoked ‘assault’ on them.
Yes, bugger off, ‘Goldberg’ or ‘Adolf’ or whatever your name is.
Yoni, I think that I will wipe you off the sole of my shoe before the stench becomes too much.
And I hope for Hanukkah, you were given a dictionary. Look up how to spell “Jews”, you imbicile.
I mean IMBECILE. Whatever way its spelled, the meaning is the same.
“Look up how to spell “Jews”, you imbicile”
What is it about antisemites, that so many of them are so profoundly stupid?
Yoni
If their synapses were functioning as one would expect in an intelligent human being it’d be impossible for them to swallow the “narratives” which turn them on hook, line and sinker.
and while I am at it, I am really sorry to notice that the free speech debate seems to have stopped.
I found it highly interesting and helpful because I haven’t decided for myself the question whether the free speech absolutism is really the right path to follow.
Sometimes it seems to me that it gives unfair advantage to those who can throw out more lies per minute and who are totally unashamed of them being not coherent i.e. full of U-turns and contradictions.
Here somebody I trust has been going through the water data of Palestinians and Israelis with amazing results which expose the lie of Israelis splurging on water while Palestinians are “dried” out. Does it get wide coverage? No. Is it discussed anywhere? No.
Why?
because thinking up a lie takes a split second but going through the data takes minutes, hours, days?
sorry it is in German but Google translate is up to it – skip the introduction and start here:
Die Agenda der „Israelkritiker“ (II): Amnesty und die „Troubled Waters“
http://germanmediawatch.posterous.com/die-agenda-der-israelkritiker-von-alex-feuerh
Thanks, Silke. Yes, I suppose you can’t be an antisemite and have all parts of your brain functioning normally.
And the same reply to Adam.
Not sure which free speech debate you mean specifically.
Thanks for the link. As to google mistranslate … well, I doubt that it is up to anything much beyond ‘the cat sat on the mat’. Others may try it. However, I am a German>English translator, inter alia 🙂
Yoni, he doesn’t seem to get the term “Joos”. Well, he doesn’t get antisemitism either – and if he does, then he is an antisemite himself.
Goldberg, you sad Jewbaiter, Richard has told us who you are, so bugger off and stage a few antisemitic “plays”.
Checked out Seven Other Children yet?
Ich habe die Einleitung dennoch gelesen. Was ist hier doch klar, Liebe Silke, ist das der „Israelkritiker“ aus der deutschen Geschichte ganz und gar nichts gelernt hat. Was war denn das Prozentsatz, das Israel mit die Nazis gleichstellt? 51,5 %? Es ist dann nicht nur Antisemiten, dem ein Teil ihrer Gehirn fehlt.
Yoni
yes that is Alex`s point – the Israel critic at least the one who dominates our media is too much of a coward to show his true anti-semitic colours which are nonetheless only too obvious.
As to free speech – I was referring to the to me very interesting back and forth you guys had about Churchill’s lousy play*) which seemed to boil down to a discussion about “American” style free speech vs. “European” style free speech.
*) I mean the woman is an acclaimed artist and I’ve seen that there are other plays by her getting performed in our publicly sponsored theaters and I think “BBC”-like radio also
Sorry I can’t really get into the subject right now – lack of time but I’ll keep reading you and your co-disputers.
Nice comment in German – I appreciate it. 😉
how on earth somebody can muster the guts to learn a language that splits its verbs so terribly will always elude me though.
I remember my first book in English. It was American short stories of the twenties and I couldn’t believe my eyes. High literature in short sentences was possible i.e. sentences so short that at the end you could remember how the thing started – quite a revelation!
LOL. Never mind literature, sometimes I translate German patents where the same sentence can go on for a page and a half. I mean, quite literally. This is exceptional, obviously, but 150-word sentences are not at all uncommon, and 75-word ones are run of the mill. One is supposed to mirror the language as closely as possible, even where (which is not always the case) a patent written originally in English would have used shorter sentences.
Thanks, very kind of you to say so. I lived in Austria for a little over a year as an 10/11-year old, that’s where I learned my German. I had no choice and was offered none …
PS. Your own English is pretty deuced good.
Yoni, thanks for the compliment, it lights my day
that’s intriguing news – I was a patent paralegal in a corporation IP department in charge of foreign applications and PCT-stuff and fought tooth and nail for having our translations done in England (except for an English lady of German-Jewish descent living at the time in Switzerland) against the corporation’s own translators. We used a lawyer/”broker” – so I even might have shovelled business your way 😉
i.e. I know about that closely mirroring and as you’re certainly bound to notice from my English – I am unable to get rid of the habit of the endless sentence and believe me I try 😉
Silke,
I do not believe in the absolutism of freedom of speech. I think that the play in question, call it anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, odious whatever is light years away from what should be banned in a Western democracy. Truthfully, I doubt any of us would want to live in a world in which a play criticizing someone else’s opinions cannot be staged.
Yoni,
1. I have no intention of discussing Uri Avneri. Suffice it to say that though I think he is horribly wrong regarding his analysis of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, I acknowledge his beliefs to be no less legitimate than mine.
2. I was not “appealing to authority” but illustrating the fact the opinions expressed in the play were very similar to those that we hear every day in Israel.
3. You say that “The play was not produced in a vacuum…” and then explain that it was anti-Semitic because its supporters live in Hampstead and read the New Statesman (I paraphrase). While much of what you say about Left wing London elites might be correct, frankly I don’t know as am not that involved in UK politics, I believe it to be irrelevant. A play should be judged on its merits and not on the basis of where those who watch it live, which papers they read or even what their political views are. If it’s anti-Semitic, it is so even if Yehudah Halevi wrote it. If it’s not, it’s not.
4. I believe that the play was critical of Israel. As such, it was an attack against me, not you. Thank G-d, I’m strong enough and self-confident enough to be able to watch the Seven Jewish Children and to roll with the punches. The play poses many legitimate questions that a Jew living for almost three decades in a Judean settlement needs to know how to answer both to the outside world, and more importantly to himself.
5. I also know how to mock and denigrate people as you learned at your cost on another page. However, I believe this issue to be far too important for that. Zionism is not my hobby or my blog. To me it is quite literally my life and the lives of my children. For that reason, if no other, I must be very careful in the opinions that I express and the conclusions I reach. For that reason I will judge a critique for what it is and not because its author lives in Swiss Cottage and reads the Guardian.
6. I know that you find much of what I say hard to comprehend and I appreciate that that from North-West London, or wherever you live, it’s probably easier and even comforting to divide existence up into good-bad, right-wrong, black-white, etc.
What can we do? That’s not the world we live in.
Daniel
I don’t have the time to re-read the play but if it is true that she claims that Israel is “drying out” the Palestinians when the truth is that Israelis use less water per head than Palestinians do, then that is a straightforward lie in synch with the filth journalists pour out on a daily basis.
and she does it in a lousy play or rather a piece of propaganda sailing under cover and/or protected by a label of charity. For me there is an amount of dishonesty after which for me the gloves are off. I am not good at labelling I try to judge these things using what I am told are good manners as a yard stick and by that she is out.
That Israelis are kind of forced to be prepared to answer or rather be prepared to debate or at least to inure themselves against all filth that is thrown at them seems to be one of the hardships the state of war or at best permanently broken cease-fire they have imposes on you and yours.
But what confuses me and which frankly doesn’t interest me very much is defining what is anti-semitism and what isn’t. If somebody wants to kill a Jew or deprive him/her of a place to call home that is the fact I am interested in and as best I remember she fits that category of mercilessness. Even if she doesn’t say so explicitly the demands she makes via her accusations result in a demand for Israelis to defend themselves by turning the other cheek.
and last but not least: what I may say about my mother is not the same as what I would tolerate from you saying about her (that’s meant to be hypothetical)
Whether every piece of filth is entitled to be granted the respect of serious consideration, debate, fisking whatever I doubt very much. At least my gut tends to vote for shut up!
There may be people “on the other side” who really want to debate honestly but I have as yet to come across one. Anyone from whom I get this specific mercilessness which seems to be reserved for judging Jews and/or their actions doesn’t qualify in my book.
Every stink that bubbles up in the EU is described in measured polite terms except guess what …
Daniel Marks, so there is no right and wrong? Ony perceptions? Such relativism is the whole problem!
There is such a thing as truth, and such a thing as lies. This play is littered with lies and hatred. It alleges that Jewish parents lie to their children, and bring them up to hate. That is sheer antisemitism.
And you should say so. Not huff and puff about “freedom of speech”. No-one is “banning” anything – but, in free speech, I have the right to say this play is antisemitic, and criticize those who either defend it, or those who fail to recognize it.
I haven’t seen the play and really can’t be bothered but I must agree with what Daniel has written mainly because that’s what mates do.
It should however be pointed out to Adam that Jewish parents have been known to lie to their children.
I will take this opportunity to join Adam in requesting to Daniel to please stop “huffing and puffing” and if you haven’t yet “huffed” or “puffed” then please don’t start.
“I haven’t seen the play and really can’t be bothered but I must agree with what Daniel has written ”
I am pleased to say that my mates have more brains than DM’s, if this idiotic statement is typical.
.
Adam,
No I did not say that there is no right or wrong, nor was I arguing for moral relativism. However, I do think that in many situations of moral dilemma one side may not be wholly right and the other wholly wrong. I’m sure you know that when Jabotinski testified before the Peel Commission his argument was not that the Arabs had no right over Palestine. His opinion was that they had a right and a claim, but that ours was greater or more right.
I am not clear what you mean by huffing and puffing, unless that is a way to dismiss or trivialize an argument that you wish to avoid, but put simply I believe that some Jewish parents lie to their children often, most lie to them occasionally and maybe a few never do. Do you think otherwise? Next time your child refuses to walk in the park and you say that you’ll leave him there when you have no intention of doing so, or when she does something mediocre and you pretend to think it’s wonderful think about me.
I agree whole-heartedly that you have a right to criticize the play and I support your decision to demonstrate against. Were I there, I might well join you. All that does not detract from the right of the “anti-Semites ” to stage it. Simply put, in an open society people do have the right to lie and non-Jews even have the right to dislike or hate you and express their feelings.
Silke,
I find your definition of Anti-Semitism very problematic. We have friends currently getting divorced and contesting the house. I suspect that according to:
“…If somebody wants to kill a Jew or deprive him/her of a place to call home ….”
I suspect they could both be considered anti-Semites.
I would rephrase it as someone who discriminates against, persecutes, causes discomfort to etc a Jew only because he is a Jew. It’s often a hard judgment call as it means guessing someone’s motivation for an action.
Gert, in my opinion answers this criterion because he will ignore every injustice in the world and just focus on those that he perceives to have been perpetrated by Jews.
I hope this clears up both those misunderstandings and that we can continue, if you so wish, to conduct this discussion in a friendly way. I for my part will endeavor neither to huff nor to puff.
“All that does not detract from the right of the “anti-Semites ” to stage it. ”
In a civilised society, race hate is not a “right”. Obviously, your brain cannot encompass this concept.
.
I learned nothing from you ‘at my cost’, DM. You flatter yourself hugely. Ditto when you claimed that I am likely to ‘cry’ because of your bullying. I am very used to bullies, in cyberspace and otherwise. I don’t cry and run to mummy as some of those bullied by you may have done throughout your life. I tell them to eff off.
You seem to be rather prone to making all kinds of assumptions generally. I don’t live in NW London, although I did live in London at one time. Moreover, I am an Israeli with a large number of close relatives all over Israel. But in any case, the play is an attack on Jews, and I am Jewish. So once again, in your arrogance you place yourself at centre-stage. This proves one thing only, and you know what it is.
You say “A play should be judged on its merits”, and conveniently ignore everything I said about the play in addition to discussing its cultural environment. Very convenient, but also very dishonest. Ah well, what a surprise.
But in any case, if you don’t understand that the cultural, social and historical environment in which a play was written determines whether or not it’s antisemitic – not whether it’s good as literature, but whether it’s racist – then I pity you, for you understand nothing about how literature and society interact.
“You … explain that it was anti-Semitic because its supporters live in Hampstead and read the New Statesman”
You really are one shameless, non-stop liar, aren’t you?
.
Daniel
assuming that I understand you correctly I know that your argument is wrong (and slightly devious for which I am grateful to you because you made me laugh) but to argue it is beyond my mental abilities.
and so I withdraw to my gut reaction which assures me that Churchill is not just wrong and debatable but outright evil.
Well, I suppose if you have to pity me that’s a pretty good reason!?
To be fair I said:
“North-West London, or wherever you live..” – hardly jumping to a conclusion.
Anyway, I think that you’ve lost the thread a bit. We’ve stopped the childish slagging off and we’re discussing the limits on freedom of expression and…once again..What is Antisemitism?
However, if you insist, you have very smelly feet and you are to literature what Eli Yishai is to fire-fighting.
I’m really getting to old for this stuff. Let’s focus on the topic!
Churchill? I love Churchill. He was king of the one-liners.
not that Churchill, that Churchill was not only king of the one liners he was a writer who really really deserved their Nobel price for literature. For his sake just in case there is an afterlife I hope that she is not related to him
Oh, sorry! I guess I’m tired. Still puzzling over what, “..your brain cannot encompass this concept.” means. Do brains really encompass things? Mine certainly doesn’t. Not at this time of night.
I’m off to bed Silke. I thank you all for an enlightening evening and even if we don’t all see eye to eye about everything, I think that we are in fundamental agreement over the major points.
23:35 Israel (West Bank) time.
Good night. Good week.
Daniel Marks, you have completely misunderstood the play – if indeed you have any knowledge of it. Let me repeat, it does not allege that it is plausible that a Jew may lie to their children. Anyone can lie, that is self-evident. the play specifically alleges that jews routinely lie to their children about the history of Israel, that they do so knowingly, and that they teach their children to hate. It is laughable really, when one considers the daily diet of antisemitism on display at Palestinian schools, on Palestinian media, officially sanctioned, and summer camps teaching how to hate and kill Jews. there is no equivalent in Israel – or amongst Jews anywhere. Why do you find this so difficult to grapple with?
Furthermore, Jabotinsky was arguing at a time before the Jews faced 62 years of attempted genocide against them by their neighbours. To use his arguments in a contemporary context is just plain silly.
Michael Goldman, so you think Jewish parents routinely lie to their children about the history of Israel, do so knowingly, and teach their children to hate?
Yet you don’t know the play. Why is it that everyone who is ignorant has big opinions?
Idiot.
Fair, DM? Fair? You don’t know the meaning of the word. I have not ‘lost the thread’ – you have lost the plot. But then, you are a sociopath who believes that people who don’t admire your wisdom are dreck beneath your shoes. You remind me of someone who was quite notorious in a well-known British national organisation some 20 years ago. He published a small book, with an ISBN and everything, which consisted almost entirely of permutations on the sentence “I am a superior being and the rest of humanity are dreck beneath my shoes”, including pretty much that very sentence. Yes, some ‘childish slagging off’. You are truly pathetic.
Adam, DM’s brain cannot encompass the concept that there is a difference between some parents occasionally lying to their children about a walk in the park for their own safety, and claiming that all parents from one particular nation lie to their children all the time in order to achieve the genocide of another nation. What can you do with such a person? He is sometimes more eloquent than Goldman, uses longer words albeit descending to a filthy schoolyard level fairly often, but basically both of them exhibit the same kind of idiocy you have identified above.
” I’m sure you know that when Jabotinski testified before the Peel Commission his argument was not that the Arabs had no right over Palestine. His opinion was that they had a right and a claim, but that ours was greater or more right.”
And yet another silly appeal to authority. So he did. So what? Jabotinsky is not the sole arbiter of this issue. And as Adam has pointed out, this was before 71 years (why 62?) of relentless attempts at genocide.
And it still has nothing to do with the fact that the pseudo-play is antisemitic.
Yoni, I agree. But what really irks me is that at a time when there is a concerted effort to delegitimize Israel, with the eventual goal of destroying her and her inhabitants (well, the Jewish ones at least), other Jews make silly arguments about non-issues and completely miss the priority of fighting back against those who would do them harm – or, as in the case of Goldberg, they side with them!
Adam and Yoni,
Since you guys seem to agree on many matters I shall address your points jointly.
I thank you for the timely reminder that the Peel Commission was a long time ago. My point was that rather than arguing for moral relativism; I was simply stating the commonly accepted (in Israel) principle that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a clash of black-white, good-bad, Batman-Joker. I mentioned Jabotinski to show that this understanding was neither forced upon us by Hilary Clinton nor by the Intifada. We have always acknowledged the validity of the Arab claim to such but have seen ours as superseding it or deserving preference over it for many reasons. This idea even can be found in the Torah (Genesis 15)
“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”
The non-Jew has a right and so does Abraham, and at a certain time Abraham’s right supersedes that of the Amorite. I’m aware that this was a long time ago and it is not appeal to authority (G-d). My point being that we can all be just as sure in our truth (or truths) without having to believe that everything our opponents say is a pack of lies and with no basis.
It’s not by chance that those who believed that there were no Arabs in Israel or that they had no rights or claims (the Israel Labor Movement) were also the first ones to throw in the towel and want to give it all away. When you bring a child up to believe that all Arabs or Leftist or anything are stupid, wicked and smell, then the first time he meets a clever one who doesn’t smell he’ll assume that everything else you’ve taught him is untrue as well and throw away the “baby with the water”.
For all these reasons as well as my fundamental belief that if my truth is strong enough I don’t have to fear lies, I do not demonstrate every time an Israeli author writes a script similar to or worse than the one under discussion nor do I generally picket the Left wing Israeli theater that wishes to stage it.
I do not generally go to such shows, unless there is some exceptional reason, and I greatly respect those who do demonstrate against their message in an intelligent way.
I doubt we shall agree about this and I’m not sure that I have explained myself clearly enough, but that’s pretty much all I can say about the matter and unless you really want a reply, I’ll leave you guys to have the final word.
Good week!
“were also the first ones to throw in the towel and want to give it all away”
All? The whole of Israel? I must have blinked and missed that one.
.
Adam
Michael Goldman, so you think Jewish parents routinely lie to their children about the history of Israel, do so knowingly, and teach their children to hate?
It might be useful to read what you comment on.
Are you really quite as stupid as you would have us believe?
Now go back and read what I actually wrote.
Michael Goldman, you wrote this:
“I haven’t seen the play and really can’t be bothered but I must agree with what Daniel has written mainly because that’s what mates do.
It should however be pointed out to Adam that Jewish parents have been known to lie to their children.”
You have not seen the play, yet insinuate that I have failed to understand Churchill’s claims. She claims that Jews routinely lie to their children about the history of Israel, do so knowingly, and teach them to hate.
You make the fatuous comment that I need it pointing out that Jewish parents have been known to lie to their children, demonstrating that you have failed to understand Churchill’s depiction of Jewish parents. She is NOT alleging that they lie about not having any ice cream. She IS alleging that they lie to make their children hate, and bring them up on lies about Israel.
That you fail to understand the difference shows your stupidity, not mine.
By the way, do you have nothing to say about such a disgusting play? Why make silly comments about non-issues when Jews are facing an onslaught of hateful propaganda?
Don’t you get what’s important here?
Adam me old cup cake
How can I insinuate anything about a play that I have never seen nor read?!
I insinuated nothing.
Of course I have failed to understand Churchill’s depiction of Jewish parents
I HAVEN’T SEEN THE FUCKING PLAY!!!
Yes my comment was facetious and meant in jest, sorry if that wasn’t clear.
I admit that I do have a real problem taking your claims of antisemtism seriously when the solution is so obvious.
Do you really think that demonstrating about a play which may or may not be antisemetic will make the slightest bit of difference?
Will all the British become Jew lovers?
What’s your next move ? Banning the play “Oliver”?
Sorry.
I’m being facetious again.
I know your heart is in the right place but the only real solution for Jews is a four hour plane ride away.
in my book Jews have an inalienable right to live in peace wherever they are legally (provided the area is under the rule of law) i.e. have a residence permit or carry a passport or are (legal) tourists
just like the rest of us …
you can’t neatly separate one from the other or rather you can but the picture coming from it isn’t nice.
As Slandering Jews tends to thrive independent from the number of Jews actually there to be maligned, it has to be fought wherever it shows. How to do that effectively, fight an at best beloved and trusted delusion, I don’t know but try really hard to find out. Sometimes miracles have happened, so why shouldn’t I be the one who has the problem-solving revelation (if that’s hubris than I profess guilty.)
“Self-loving” Jews going after eachother does to me not seem like a promising alley to investigate tough.
Michael Goldman, I am not Jewish, so am not eligible for aliyah. However, I am deeply concerned about the level of increasing antisemitism in my country. We are in a war – of ideas. There is an onlsaught of propaganda against the Jews and Israel. That’s why I take it seriously, and personally, I don’t think this is something to joke about – the stakes are way too high. I appreciate that you weren’t being serious.
I think you should be though.
Adam
Respect.
From my point of view, though the subject is serious it is also absurd as the simple solution for all Jews is so obvious.