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Once again the bullshit's here 'cause history moves in circles
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg has a really good thread on the history of the Star of David and its two-thousand-year use as a Jewish symbol, not merely a symbol of the modern State of Israel.
The explanation is necessary because of the D.C. Dyke March, which yesterday I heard had followed the 2017 Chicago Dyke March in banning Jewish pride flags under the defense of anti-Zionism. Currently they seem to be stating that what they have really banned are "nationalist symbols," a category which appears to fold the Star of David at any more visible scale than a necklace automatically into "pro-Israel paraphernalia." Which is historically ignorant and logically inconsistent, especially since pride variants of the Palestinian flag are explicitly welcome on the grounds that its limited recognition as a nation-state means Palestine by definition cannot express nationalism, but neither of these factors matters if the point is to strain only the right kind of Jews into your march, not just the ones who might be, you know, dykes.
I find this situation upsetting and also sheerly exhausting. It is not a distraction; it's not smoke and mirrors if people are getting hurt; but it's the same almost inarticulate fury I feel at things that are wrong. They are fighting from false premises. People are tearing themselves apart over lines drawn around strawmen. I don't see the Christian cross being called out as a symbol of historical oppression unfit for representation in a radically inclusive queer space even though the track record of Christianity on queerness is just about as dreadful as its history of crusade and genocide across any number of nations, including the one we're all embedded in right now. "Nationalist" symbols only, which filters the overlap of iconography and identity to one ethnic group handily. Hence the necessity of Ruttenberg's thread. I wish it didn't feel like arguing with shifting goalposts, premised on quicksand.
I had a terrible night already. I couldn't fall asleep until it was light out; then I couldn't fall asleep because it was light out. When I finally did manage to achieve unconsciousness, I had nightmares about being caught up in some contemporary suppression of dissidents (I should be that important) and was woken within the hour by two phone calls, one of which was a wrong number from a man who didn't appear to understand how wrong numbers work. (Him: "Can I speak to Lauren?" Me: "There's no Lauren at this number." Him: "Okay, I'll call back.") I have too much work to do before the week is over and not enough time to think and I can't help but wonder if I were more plugged in to Boston Pride, would I be hearing the same kind of one-of-the-good-ones gatekeeping from the city I live in? I'm thinking of a line written last week by Keith Kahn-Harris, which shouldn't be a radical suggestion: "Anti-racism should not be a reward for being culturally interesting or politically sympathetic; it should require no justification." More and more I feel there are people for whom it will never be justified and while I worry less about them shooting up synagogues or burning down rabbis' homes, I worry very much that they will stand with folded hands and look sorry and do nothing, nothing at all.
The explanation is necessary because of the D.C. Dyke March, which yesterday I heard had followed the 2017 Chicago Dyke March in banning Jewish pride flags under the defense of anti-Zionism. Currently they seem to be stating that what they have really banned are "nationalist symbols," a category which appears to fold the Star of David at any more visible scale than a necklace automatically into "pro-Israel paraphernalia." Which is historically ignorant and logically inconsistent, especially since pride variants of the Palestinian flag are explicitly welcome on the grounds that its limited recognition as a nation-state means Palestine by definition cannot express nationalism, but neither of these factors matters if the point is to strain only the right kind of Jews into your march, not just the ones who might be, you know, dykes.
I find this situation upsetting and also sheerly exhausting. It is not a distraction; it's not smoke and mirrors if people are getting hurt; but it's the same almost inarticulate fury I feel at things that are wrong. They are fighting from false premises. People are tearing themselves apart over lines drawn around strawmen. I don't see the Christian cross being called out as a symbol of historical oppression unfit for representation in a radically inclusive queer space even though the track record of Christianity on queerness is just about as dreadful as its history of crusade and genocide across any number of nations, including the one we're all embedded in right now. "Nationalist" symbols only, which filters the overlap of iconography and identity to one ethnic group handily. Hence the necessity of Ruttenberg's thread. I wish it didn't feel like arguing with shifting goalposts, premised on quicksand.
I had a terrible night already. I couldn't fall asleep until it was light out; then I couldn't fall asleep because it was light out. When I finally did manage to achieve unconsciousness, I had nightmares about being caught up in some contemporary suppression of dissidents (I should be that important) and was woken within the hour by two phone calls, one of which was a wrong number from a man who didn't appear to understand how wrong numbers work. (Him: "Can I speak to Lauren?" Me: "There's no Lauren at this number." Him: "Okay, I'll call back.") I have too much work to do before the week is over and not enough time to think and I can't help but wonder if I were more plugged in to Boston Pride, would I be hearing the same kind of one-of-the-good-ones gatekeeping from the city I live in? I'm thinking of a line written last week by Keith Kahn-Harris, which shouldn't be a radical suggestion: "Anti-racism should not be a reward for being culturally interesting or politically sympathetic; it should require no justification." More and more I feel there are people for whom it will never be justified and while I worry less about them shooting up synagogues or burning down rabbis' homes, I worry very much that they will stand with folded hands and look sorry and do nothing, nothing at all.
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I suspect that the levels of left-wing anti-Semitism have risen in recent years, because a rising tide floats all garbage and global levels of anti-Semitism have risen in recent years, but I have seen credible evidence that it's always been present because anti-Semitism has always been present and it feels right now very much like a problem that everyone who isn't personally affected by it finds easy to dismiss because it's not synagogue massacres or Chabad arson (it's just part of the climate that enables them) and how dare you suggest that we the progressives are racist, don't you know we're the good guys, we punch Nazis, and anyway is it even possible to be racist against Jews with all their privilege, and the end result is what I realized I was feeling in 2017 and in 2018 noted had gotten worse and I really don't want to make the State of the Anti-Semitism an annual event around here, I just want it to get better, and part of what would make it better is left-wing types actually allying with Jews rather than subscribing to the same old killing conspiracies, just in a different, more social-justice-veneered key. Like, I understand that anti-Semitism is famously referred to as the socialism of fools, but no one needed to make that literal. [edit] The problem is that it's not just buying the fascist crap; there's homegrown lefty crap in there too. If you start from the principle that Jews are other (and therefore undeserving of your protection, alliance, human decency), then whatever your placement on the political spectrum, you'll find some belief to back you up.