I have a friend from my Judaism class whose grandmother survived the camps. She lived in a small town in Poland, and when the Germans marched in, the Jews all went out into the streets to cheer, because the Jews were treated so much better in Germany, and the Germans were so cultured.
It wasn't that long ago in this country that McCarthy went on and on about the "Communists," when what he and everyone else actually meant was "Jews," and this country responded by putting crosses on everything that didn't move and words like "In God We Trust" in the pledge and on the money and adding "faith in Jesus Christ" to state and city charters across the country that are only now just being removed, and not without a fight. And all it would take is one charismatic leader to get up and say "The reason we're at war, the reason things like September 11th happen, the reason you can't afford to buy a house and the reason you have no health insurance, is because of Israel, and those goddammed Jews who take our money to keep themselves safe while they eat the blood of little Palestinian babies!" There were plenty of people saying exactly that throughout 2002, quite a lot of them on street corners in my own fucking neighborhood. The poet laureate of New Jersey, that year, wrote a poem about how all the Jews knew about the hijackings, which is why none of them were in the towers. My synagogue was defaced the weekend The Passion came out. The Passion came out, and people called it "accurate." My Jewish friends have left France by the dozens, because they got tired of being beaten up in the streets and having their synagogues burned. And neither you, nor I, am allowed to go to more than a dozen countries in the Middle East because we are Jewish. Quite a number of those countries are our allies, and hold more than a little political sway here.
Are we systematically raped in this country? No. Were Black people being put in camps and raped, tortured, and murdered anywhere in the "civilized" world within the lifetimes of anyone alive to remember while this and every other country stood by and did NOTHING? No. Were we? Fuck yes.
The reason Jews talk about it so much is because, well, it was pretty fucking bad, and it happened extremely recently, and all the reasons it happened? Are still there. The blood libel is still around. The blood libel is still around IN THIS COUNTRY. You can't wear a Star of David in Germany, or Poland, or even France these days. And this country looks a lot like Germany in the twenties, minus only the massive economic depression and the crazy charismatic leader.
To sum up, do Jews right now have a harder time getting a mortgage than Black people? No. But discrimination, and forced "otherness," historically precedes mass murder for Jews in ways that it does and has not for Blacks and Latinos. So yes, we're a little touchy about it. I don't think that's inappropriate.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-31 05:01 pm (UTC)It wasn't that long ago in this country that McCarthy went on and on about the "Communists," when what he and everyone else actually meant was "Jews," and this country responded by putting crosses on everything that didn't move and words like "In God We Trust" in the pledge and on the money and adding "faith in Jesus Christ" to state and city charters across the country that are only now just being removed, and not without a fight. And all it would take is one charismatic leader to get up and say "The reason we're at war, the reason things like September 11th happen, the reason you can't afford to buy a house and the reason you have no health insurance, is because of Israel, and those goddammed Jews who take our money to keep themselves safe while they eat the blood of little Palestinian babies!" There were plenty of people saying exactly that throughout 2002, quite a lot of them on street corners in my own fucking neighborhood. The poet laureate of New Jersey, that year, wrote a poem about how all the Jews knew about the hijackings, which is why none of them were in the towers. My synagogue was defaced the weekend The Passion came out. The Passion came out, and people called it "accurate." My Jewish friends have left France by the dozens, because they got tired of being beaten up in the streets and having their synagogues burned. And neither you, nor I, am allowed to go to more than a dozen countries in the Middle East because we are Jewish. Quite a number of those countries are our allies, and hold more than a little political sway here.
Are we systematically raped in this country? No. Were Black people being put in camps and raped, tortured, and murdered anywhere in the "civilized" world within the lifetimes of anyone alive to remember while this and every other country stood by and did NOTHING? No. Were we? Fuck yes.
The reason Jews talk about it so much is because, well, it was pretty fucking bad, and it happened extremely recently, and all the reasons it happened? Are still there. The blood libel is still around. The blood libel is still around IN THIS COUNTRY. You can't wear a Star of David in Germany, or Poland, or even France these days. And this country looks a lot like Germany in the twenties, minus only the massive economic depression and the crazy charismatic leader.
To sum up, do Jews right now have a harder time getting a mortgage than Black people? No. But discrimination, and forced "otherness," historically precedes mass murder for Jews in ways that it does and has not for Blacks and Latinos. So yes, we're a little touchy about it. I don't think that's inappropriate.