Dear All,
Christopher wrote:
>It was the series of *me too* reactions to Douglas's 'killer Jews' that
>dismayed me much more than the phrase itself. The phrase _was_ shocking. Not
>because it was anti-Semitic but because its force depended on its being an
>oxymoron, as when a freesheet delivered to where I live referred to a
>mentally ill child murderer as a 'killer Gran'. (Grans are old, have white
>hair and specs and can't kill for toffee. Ditto Jews. Except their hair is
>black and every single one is a yeshiva bokher unless she's a Jewish
>Mother.) Here the unasked questions, the answers unsupplied, concern the
>extent to which taxonomies shared by Jews and Gentiles can allow Jews to be
>genuinely wicked. As is the case, I think, with Mr Sharon.
Why is "Killer Jews" an oxymoron? Why is it that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
is seen as heroic? Is it because the Jews were acting in self defense? So
is it okay then for Jews to fight -- as long as they're fighting back,
especially in hopelessly outnumbered and under-armed circumstances? As long
as they're doomed to lose -- and perish?
I was appalled by the politics influenced by Kahane and his followers. I
was dismayed to see his influence in Begin and Sharon. It must be
remembered that when they were young in Europe Begin and Vladimir
Jabotinsky were facing environments that threatened them with destruction;
a threat that became annihilation.
I'm not saying that the Arabs made us do it. I am saying that accounts of
the current situation need to take into account while criticizing Israel
that the country has lived under incessant threat of destruction ever since
its creation. And before its creation.
And I am disturbed that for many there is no distinction between citizens
of the state of Israel, the Israeli armed forces or Jews. Is the stereotype
changing now from yeshiva bokkers and Jewish mamas to brownshirt
exterminators?
Yours,
Ivy
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