Once there was a magazine called Heeb, and the name alone drew a whole lot of attention from some very concerned people in the Jewish world. Over the course of time, we, did a whole lot of eye-catching, pop-culturey, “irreverent” things that drew a lot of people’s attention.
Well, not for the first time, yesterday’s irreverent is today’s relevant. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (none of whose writers, to our knowledge, has ever worked for Letterman, and certainly not for Heeb) just came out with its top ten list of 2010’s “Top Antisemitic Slurs.”
Imitation, they say, is the highest form of flattery, and the fact that one of the premier organizations in the Jewish world is doing schtick (albeit without much of a punch-line) is pretty gratifying, even if we’re a little hurt that everybody’s favorite antisemitic slur didn’t make the list. L’shana haba…
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[…] http://www.heebmagazine.com/the-relevance-of-irreverence/ […]
In general a good list, but I don’t think #9 should be on the list. My wife is not Jewish but she works in a Hasidic neighborhood and the locals are not nice to her in stores. She even had a group of children chant “goy, goy, goy” at her as she walked into a building. Quote #9 is not antisemitic, it’s an honest observation by someone who is made to feel unwelcome in a Hasidic neighborhood.
Why are these anti semitic remarks missing from the list?
“We don’t need to help Arabs set down roots in Israel,” Rabbi Shlomo Aviner of the Beit El settlement, said on Tuesday. Aviner explained that he supported the move for two reasons: one, a Jew looking for an apartment should get preference over a gentile; and two, to keep the growing Arab population from settling too deeply.
“Racism originated in the Torah,” said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, who heads the Ashdod Yeshiva. “The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel. This is what the Holy One Blessed Be He intended and that is what the [sage] Rashi interpreted.”
Because anti-arab racism, repugnant though it may be, isn’t “antisemitism,” which by definition is racism against Jews.
The Palestinians are a Semitic people. Attacks on them are anti semitism. They should be included in the list.
“Semitic” was coined originally as a linguistic term, referring to a family of languages. By that standard, Ethiopians and ancient Akkadians are also Semitic people, in that they speak/spoke Semitic languages. NO one has ever suggested that hostility to Ethiopians is antisemitism.
The word “antisemitism” was specifically coined in the 19th century to refer to prejudice against Jews based on race, as opposed to the old style “Jew-hatred” based on religion. I didn’t make up the word, or it’s definition. If you have an issue with that definition of antisemitism–which, of course, excludes Palestinians, Yemenites, Ethiopians, Akkadians, Ugarites, Hyksos, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and any number of other speakers of Semitic languages, don’t take it up with me, but with Wilhelm Marr, who coined both “Semitism” (which referred specifically to Jews, as opposed to other speakers of Semitic languages) and “antisemitism” (which refers to hostility to Jews, as opposed to speakers of other Semitic languages).
While some of those are genuinely anti-Semitic, others I think are there just because they criticize Israel, which isn’t anti-Semitic in itself.
‘Because anti-arab racism, repugnant though it may be, isn’t “antisemitism,” which by definition is racism against Jews.’
Do you agree that it is racist to refer to anyone who calls themself a Palestinian as an Arab? (I am not accusing you of doing this, I simply ask a question.)
Is it racist to refer to people who call themselves “Palestinians” as Arabs? I’m not sure how it would be. While historically, “Palestinians” were not necessarily Arabs (in the 1930’s, for example, “Palestinian” was just as much, if not more commonly used to refer to the Jews of Palestine than the Arabs, many of whom didn’t identify as Palestinians, But since the 1960’s, Palestinian identity has been–by the choice of Palestinian nationalists–intertwined with Arab identity. Indeed, in part at least because of the historically large number of Christians living in the Land of Israel, Arab nationalism (as opposed to traditional religious-based identities) has been part of “Palestinian” identity (e.g., “Filastina,” the first Palestinian Arab newspaper, was founded in Jaffa in 1911 by Christians). So while there may be some people who identify as Palestinians without identifying as Arabs, the vast majority do both, so no, it’s not racist for a non-Palestinian Arab to make assumptions based on the overwhelming rhetoric and trends of the Arabs who live(d) in the land of Israel and identify as Palestinians.
Do you think it’s racist? If so, why? Because there’s no shortage of anti-Arab racism to go around,but that doesn’t seem to be an example to me.