But the front line shifted and my rifle got lifted, had to fight the war on my own

[sovay]

I am sick of the amount of anti-Semitism in the country I live in and the planet I live on. Last year I made a post in which I noted that while I had experienced relatively little direct anti-Semitism in my daily life, I had nonetheless assimilated the idea that being a responsible Jew in a majority non-Jewish society meant pretending the whole thing was a non-issue unless a non-Jew happened to mention it, in which case it was permissible to agree politely before turning the conversation to some other, non-Jewish axis of marginalization which was actually valid and worth combating, as opposed to some guilt-tripping specter of the oppression Olympics that everyone knew had magically melted out of existence with V-E Day. I concluded that was pernicious bullshit. That hasn't stopped a great many of my fellow Americans from behaving, whether from belief or opportunism, as though it's true. I believe it was around the time of the Chicago Dyke March that I had the thrilling first experience of being told in so many words by some white dude on Facebook that Jews forfeited the right to participate in public discourse when they engaged in genocide, which he followed up by calling for the death of Israel. I'd have gotten it sooner, and maybe on a daily basis, if I were on Tumblr or Twitter. This isn't even the conspiracy theories and the hate crimes; this is just the second-order gaslighting. It didn't happen. It doesn't happen. And if it should happen, well, you deserved it.

James Agee had mixed feelings about Gentleman's Agreement (1947). That's all right; I have problems with it myself. But I have mixed feelings about his mixed feelings. He praises the film's writing, directing, and acting; then he acknowledges that while "[m]uch of its more serious stuff, about Anti-Semitism, is very good and very heartening too . . . [i]n a way it is as embarrassing to see a movie Come Right Out Against Anti-Semitism as it would be to see a movie Come Right Out Against torturing children." If he means that it's embarrassing because it's clumsily done, I might give him that. I don't remember the movie being subtle, and it is the particular kind of earnest Hollywood unsubtlety that, if you are already aware of the problem, can leave you feeling well-meaningly whatever-the-broader-social-justice-equivalent-of-mansplained-is at. But if he means that it's embarrassing because everyone knows anti-Semitism is wrong in the same way that everyone knows child-torturing is wrong and therefore it is unnecessary to educate anyone about how wrong it is, in fact not everyone does know either of those things, and some people are extremely invested in not finding out. They have become especially vocal in the last couple of years. They have become especially active.

I tell people that just because one of their friends got hit by a freight train doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt that they got hit by a car. In the ongoing conversation about sex and consent, I don't find it controversial to say that a lot of things can be not assault and still not be acceptable. Just because we haven't reached the worst-case scenario doesn't mean that everything is fine. So we aren't experiencing Shoah 2.0; it's still not all right that we have an Illinois Nazi about to win the Republican primary. (He will almost certainly get wiped off the map by his Democratic opponent, but it's still setting a precedent.) It's not all right that I no longer have to tune my ears to dogwhistle frequency to hear the rising levels of Jewish conspiracy in public and private speech. It's not all right that I'm still afraid every time I post something alluding to the existence of anti-Semitism that some friend-of-a-friendlist stranger will wander by and give me grief for it, or worse, people I know and trust will tell me to stop being so sensitive. Or I'll say something about Pesach and get asked how I can take pride in being Jewish when Israel, which has also now happened to me, thrillingly.

This post brought to you by encountering in quick succession first the news that the president of Poland has signed into law the bill criminalizing acknowledgement of his country's complicity in the Holocaust and then an internet critic complaining that Alden Ehrenreich's Han Solo looks too Jewish. I think most people who aren't trawling for an excuse for Holocaust denial can agree that the first of these things is a problem. The second looks as though it should be dismissible; first of all the critic's conception of Han Solo as a "casual-frat boy-with-an-attitude" looks more like projection than canon and secondly Harrison Ford, parent and original of that scoundrel swagger, is, don't even bother to wait for it, Jewish. But since what the critic is actually saying is that the identifiably Jewish Ehrenreich is thereby insufficiently manly to play as iconically masculine a character as the implicitly gentile (in a galaxy far, far away) Han Solo, it's not any more dismissible than other racist complaints about casting, like Noma Dumezweni's Hermione ruining Harry Potter forever.

I have no clever conclusions. I am sick of things getting worse. And I am sick of the manifestation of things getting worse that tells me that I'm not allowed to say so. Pain is not a zero-sum game.

Comments

[kore]

They saw their Uncle Manny, dirk between his teeth, slacks belted at the armpits, dropping from the chandelier to knock together the heads of a couple of nefarious auditors

Haaah, that's amazing.

Presumably this dude has never heard of, oh, say, Moshe Dayan? ....no, no on second thought I have no desire to know what he might have heard of.

Your film writing is lovely and complex and lucid and fun and so many planes above this dude you're like the red Tesla sportscar going off to Mars. Seriously.

[sovay]

Your film writing is lovely and complex and lucid and fun and so many planes above this dude you're like the red Tesla sportscar going off to Mars. Seriously.

If I ever do publish a book, I want a testimonial from you on the cover.

[kore]

You got it! No lie.

(I also think you could put most of those film reviews into a book without changing much of anything, and I bet other readers would agree with me.)

[pameladean]

I totally concur. I actually have a lot of trouble understanding and appreciating movies -- some kind of processing disorder? who knows? -- and I certainly don't understand how they work, but I am RIVETED by your film reviews, and even picking up some knowledge and understanding.

P.

[sovay]

I actually have a lot of trouble understanding and appreciating movies -- some kind of processing disorder? who knows? -- and I certainly don't understand how they work, but I am RIVETED by your film reviews, and even picking up some knowledge and understanding.

That's a wonderful thing to hear. Thank you.

I will think seriously about this.

[gwynnega]

Vehemently consigned!

[dhampyresa]

you could put most of those film reviews into a book without changing much of anything

And it would make a PERFECT birthday gift for a friend of mine.

[redbird]

They've maybe heard of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, but not that that harmless-seeming old woman is a combat veteran.

[kore]

Now I want a story where elderly people in say a Bronx apartment building hold off a group of attacking young anti-Semitic assholes with improvised traps and urban combat techniques. Perhaps aided by a golem....

[moon_custafer]

Yeah, now I want the Uncle-Manny-drops-from-a-chandelier novel. Maybe Daniel Pinkwater could write it, if Chabon doesn't want to?

Given the existence of Leslie Howard, William Shatner, etc., I think it’s reasonable to say that this critic is oblivious to a lot of acting history.

I think it’s also reasonable to say that the phrase “too Jewish” should never be used except as a joke in Mel Brooks movies.

[kore]

Maybe Daniel Pinkwater could write it, if Chabon doesn't want to?

YES

(Just imagine, a tenement full of nice harmless-looking old people, and all of them are combat veterans....)

Yeah, nobody tell him about Kirk Douglas. Or James Caan. Or Chris Pine. Or Jason Isaacs. Or or or.... ("Funny, she doesn't look Druish!")

[moon_custafer]

Well, that’s much of the premise of Kung Fu Hustle, and the main reason I love that movie.

[sovay]

Well, that’s much of the premise of Kung Fu Hustle, and the main reason I love that movie.

Seconding Kung Fu Hustle, which cannot be the only martial arts screwball crime black comedy in existence, but is the only one I've seen and fabulous of its type.

[sovay]

Yeah, now I want the Uncle-Manny-drops-from-a-chandelier novel. Maybe Daniel Pinkwater could write it, if Chabon doesn't want to?

Pinkwater would be perfect.

Given the existence of Leslie Howard, William Shatner, etc., I think it’s reasonable to say that this critic is oblivious to a lot of acting history.

Erik Horáková looked at the Shatner issue in "Freshly Remember'd: Kirk Drift":

"According to the visual conventions of television, James T. Kirk looks like an All-American hero. As a consequence, more people remember Nimoy was a second-generation, Yiddish-speaking immigrant than remember Shatner was raised in a very similar (if Canadian) environment. Thus re-writing Kirk as the Zapp Brannigan popular idea of Kirk doesn't just do harm to the character and introduce a new 'Kirk' defined by chauvinistic violence: there’s also an element of goy-washing. Shatner's Jewish body is over-written by this Lord Flashheart Wagnerian colossus. The voice actor Billy West's other character Dr Zoidberg may be Jewish-coded, but Brannigan certainly isn't: that’s left to Zoidberg, and to Kif Kroker, Brannigan's Spock figure. Kif's voice is inspired by that of Jewish comedian Jon Lovitz, but it almost doesn't need to be: you get all those Ashkenazic associations out of nerdy, alien-Othered, decent but nebbish Kif already . . . Do you see what popular culture has to think about Jews and masculinity for Nimoy's Jewishness to make it through in this altered form? Do you see why Shatner's is invisible and obliterated in this way? With violent anti-semitism once more on the rise in America and Europe, I'm not particularly inclined to see such figurations as neutral, free of context and of consequence. My patience for things that are 'just jokes' is now reserved for shit that's, I don't know, funny."

At this point I don't understand how you can know Leslie Howard existed and not know he was Jewish. The Nazis hated him. It was personal.

I think it’s also reasonable to say that the phrase “too Jewish” should never be used except as a joke in Mel Brooks movies.

Speaking of people with combat experience . . .

[moon_custafer]

All those shells and bombs going off all around you. Never mind death. A man could lose his hearing.

That quote reminds me a little of Ernst Thesinger’s comment on his WWI experience: “Oh, the dreadful people and the dreadful noise.” Which reinforces my belief that camp, of all kinds, is a form of stiff-upper-lip.

[sovay]

Which reinforces my belief that camp, of all kinds, is a form of stiff-upper-lip.

I think so, although I think of it more positively than the stiff upper lip, which can get too easily tangled up with machismo. Camp is a way of making fragility indestructible.