Fury as Israeli writer criticises US Jews

One of Israel's most celebrated novelists has been denounced by American Jews for questioning the depth of their faith and suggesting they would swap their national allegiance as they would swap a jacket.

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'I am what I am. I have a language, I have a people; like the Dane; like the Norwegian. I cannot be Danish. I cannot be Norwegian,' he said.

He said that the past 100 years had contained a series of failures for the Jewish people. He said the Jews in Europe had been given the opportunity to return to Israel by the British government's Balfour declaration in 1917, yet they had failed to take it, even though the warnings of disaster were everywhere.

He scoffed at Ozick, who tried to define her Jewishness as living her life in the US but also being hurt by events in Israel. 'You sit in America and you think of Israel,' he mocked. 'In Israel, the Jew takes responsibility for all the components of his life. In Israel there will never be a question of a Jew becoming assimilated just as there is no question of Frenchman being assimilated in France.'

The Observer

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In this case I would make it "dumb shit".

His stupid comments were divisive and un-newsworthy - not really helpful to post on a Democratic site.

I had not realized you were the arbiter of what should and should not be posted; but now that you have been so kind as to straighten me out, I'll try to be more careful.

Jew vs. Jew thread? (Only answer if you feel like it of course.)

For example, that I thought that such assholes need to have a wider audience.

If Jews wish to get in a fight about it, well, that's their business, not mine, I don't really think in a Jew-oriented way, or Palestinian-oriented either, or any sort of oriented, most of the time I try to be sort of unoriented in my thinking.

It seems worth mentioning that - other than you and me - we don't really have an argument here so far.

That said, I do see what you are on about, it just isn't something that would occur to me to worry about, and I doubt that this twit will have any real effect on the course of events. In the meantime embarassing his sorry ass may help ensure he is more circumspect in the future.

Considering how much money and influence American Jews give Israel,Yehoshua should shut up. Jews that don't want to move to the Zionist paradise are well within their rights and shouldn't be made to feel less Jewish. I get pretty tired of the arrogance of Israelis in general. The crap about assimilation seems particularly hypocritical. Jewish communities have existed all over the world for centuries and I consider them just as Jewish as any Israeli. The extreme zionists have done everything in their power to destroy these communities over the past few decades. It's a terrible shame.

...especially those in the US.

The idea of Jewish identity is extraordinarily complex and layered, and all things considered, the Jews who live outside Israel are certainly entitled to their opinion not only about what that identity means, but about the state of the State of Israel.

Hekate

He's arguing that Israel and its supporters represent the true Jews, and that any Jewish person who considers himself American, Canadian, etc. is a pretender. More proof that every denomination and culture has its lunatic fringe.


"He scoffed at Ozick, who tried to define her Jewishness as living her life in the US but also being hurt by events in Israel. 'You sit in America and you think of Israel,' he mocked. 'In Israel, the Jew takes responsibility for all the components of his life. In Israel there will never be a question of a Jew becoming assimilated just as there is no question of Frenchman being assimilated in France.'

He said that diaspora Jews changed their nationalities like jackets. Once they were Polish and Russian; now they were British and American. One day they could choose to be Chinese or Singaporean, he said."


That's quite an affront to the thousands of Jews who live in China and Singapore. F*** him.

...to attempt to shame diasporic Jews into following their conservative ways. This gentleman is harsh in his rhetoric but he is not alone. There's a softer version of this emotional blackmail illustrated in an article discussed in IP a few weeks ago- read my message (including the excerpted material) after the --snip-- to skip to the heart of the matter.

PB