tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post5608894351552695826..comments2023-11-14T09:41:39.946+00:00Comments on Micah's Paradigm Shift: Simon Schama and the error of Jewish silenceRobert Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11656729802011708553noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-62199759823314712272016-03-28T07:53:59.371+01:002016-03-28T07:53:59.371+01:00Many non-Jews reading these will be impressed by t...Many non-Jews reading these will be impressed by the apparent capacity of the Jews for debate, even when under fire. One thing is for certain though, we deserve our day in the sun just like any other "group" of people and we should not ever have to apologise for seeking, nay, demanding it. I grew up in South Africa where I never encountered anti-semitism perhaps because the local bigots had their hands full with other matters. Since moving to the UK I've come to be aware of the resilience and the irrationality of European anti-semitism. That's puzzled me, because from my experience what you get with the Jews is a good, warm conversation and a generous well-stocked fridge, perhaps, I grant you, to some people's taste, a little under-provided with alcohol. What I'm getting at is the more I read about the forces upon European Jewry in the late 19th cent, firstly with the accumulation of centuries of Christian prejudice, adding in the then respectable eugenics of the time, not to mention the waves of pogroms in Russia, it was inevitable that migrations to the Ottoman Levant would occur. The forces of history here are beyond much of our control. Herzl wrote of the anti-s. forces gathering in Europe: "I cannot imagine what appearance and form this will take. Will it be expropriation by some revolutionary force from below? Will it be proscription by some reactionary force from above? Will they banish us? Will they kill us? I expect all these forms and others", and: “It will overtake even Hungarian Jews with brutality, and the longer it takes to come, the worse it will be. The stronger they [the Jews] become, the more bestial will it be. There is no escaping it.” Herzl is correctly predicting mass murder. If from his vantage point, 40 years before the rise of Hitler, he was right in his predictions, I feel that today we are too hard on ourselves. One feels for the desperation of the Palestinians and for opportunities lost. They did not ask for waves of Jews to arrive from left and right but come they did carried by the tides of history. Resolution here is a problem for the world community which made an attempt in 1947 by partitioning Mandate land. One hopes that peace can be achieved. I think we take Israel's existence for granted, but if one tries to take a dispassionate view of Israel, is it not, for all its faults, a remarkable achievement? Established under international law a home for a people half of whose number had been wiped out by an unthinkable industry of mass murder? I feel we perhaps judge ourselves too highly. The other parties involved in the Middle-East conflict have not always distinguished themselves either, and it may just be a "class of civilizations" that will remain so, but one hopes it doesn't.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15725415035467172203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-19096159902518506612014-03-26T08:02:56.547+00:002014-03-26T08:02:56.547+00:00I have come across this discussion after watching ...I have come across this discussion after watching the film "Hannah Arendt", then watching Simon Schama's series, "The [use of definite article noted!] story of the Jews" in which he said he was unapologetic about being a Zionist. I haven't yet found what Schama thinks of Hannah Arendt's analysis of the Jewish leaders' cooperation with the Nazi authorities but we're only up to Episode 3 of "the" story here in Australia. He is a Zionist, so I guess he will gloss over it. Thanks all for an interesting discussion. JulSagarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03811324668874672342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-21442136513980774672013-11-19T22:26:07.566+00:002013-11-19T22:26:07.566+00:00Hi Kenny, I'm not endorsing Donald's views...Hi Kenny, I'm not endorsing Donald's views by publishing his comment. I agree they are offensive. Thank you for taking the trouble to call him out. I hope others do too. I'm not going to delete Donald's comment. Robert Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11656729802011708553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-8293293604604569062013-11-14T11:06:38.389+00:002013-11-14T11:06:38.389+00:00Only just seen this. I am of course quite happy fo...Only just seen this. I am of course quite happy for my comments to be challenged, and will debate Zionism and Jewish history with anyone – as long as they don't use abusive language. The crude Islamophobia expressed at the end of this post falls outside the bounds of decency. It is a criminal piece of hate speech. Why has Robert Cohen approved it for posting on his blog? Will he now remove it?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-56048580107478773182013-11-09T23:58:24.355+00:002013-11-09T23:58:24.355+00:00Agree with Donald Zimmer.....Agree with Donald Zimmer.....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-85201235813150341052013-10-28T00:53:56.788+00:002013-10-28T00:53:56.788+00:00I am not a Jew; I am not British. It seems to me ...I am not a Jew; I am not British. It seems to me that intellectuals like to get so wrapped up in trying to prove how insightful they are that they fail to acknowledge plain historical fact. Zionism would never have been created were it not for the historical prejudice and never-ending persecution of Jews in Europe throughout the centuries, culminating with the Holocaust. For example, I visited Germany several years ago as a tourist. It seemed that in every community I visited I would spot a plaque commemorating some slaughter of Jews at one time or another; and these occurred centuries before Hitler was born. <br /><br />And I just love the claim by Kenny Fryde (in an attempt to discredit the need for Zionism) about "...the extraordinary upturn in (secular) Jewish fortunes and flowering of Yiddish culture in the early Soviet Union" (as if any culture has ever flourished under communism; just ask the Tibetans). Notice the word - 'secular'- in parentheses? Communists under Stalin had no tolerance for the religious part of Yiddish culture. However, Isn't the Jewish religion a rather important component of Yiddish culture? So, the "flowering" only went as far as the bloody, murderous, intolerant, atheistic communists allowed it to go. <br /><br />If I had been a Jew back then (especially a Jew in Eastern Europe where the vast majority of Europe's Jews lived), I would surely have been a Zionist. Perhaps there were European countries where Jews were grudgingly tolerated (like early 20th century Poland). Nevertheless, Jews always had to live under the very real possibility that at any moment the hammer would fall and some political leader would foment another round of anti-Semitism that would shatter the illusion that Jews had successfully integrated into a country's culture. <br /><br />In fact, if there were a country where the Holocaust was less likely to have come into being in Europe, it had to have been Germany. First, the Jewish population of Germany never exceeded eight tenths of one percent of Germany's population. Second, German Jews were as fully integrated into German society as any Jews were in any European country. Third, Jews in Germany wanted nothing more than to be Germans. In general, they were proud to be German. Then, Hitler and the Nazis rose to prominence and the hammer fell upon the Jews and shattered any illusion that they could ever be successfully integrated into Germany society or any European society for that matter.<br /><br />So cut the intellectual gibberish!! Those early 20th century Zionists came up with a viable solution to their seemingly intractable situation. They emigrated from Europe and purchased land in their historic homeland and made it flourish. And then, they had to fight to keep it, like people have had to do from time immemorial. <br /><br />And if they have had to build a wall or a fence to keep murderous, brainwashed thugs from entering their country and blowing their citizens into bloody pieces of meat, so be it. It is the first obligation of a nation-state to protect its citizenry. As someone once said, "Good fences make good neighbors."<br /><br />And one more thing; Israel has a very large Arab minority. Most of them live better than they would in the Islamic hell holes that make up most Arab countries and the world of Islam in general. Certainly, Arab women in Israel have it better than women in Islamic countries. On the other hand, what has happened to Jewish communities which used to exist in large parts of the Islamic world? They no longer exist since the Jews of those communities were forcibly expelled from them.<br />Donnie Zhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05692205838599159658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-65698755537873823522013-10-17T11:05:35.322+01:002013-10-17T11:05:35.322+01:00Cuddly ? Kenny I know where you are coming from, I...Cuddly ? Kenny I know where you are coming from, I have been there. However, when you have spent half a year in the Jordan Valley, 10 hours a day under a blazing sun making mud bricks to help rebuild demolished structures and all that, you lose a bit of your enthusiasm for history. Further you get impatient and a bit bored with hearing about conflicting narratives and come to feel that the issue is not narratives but a state of affairs.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065171146167587918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-24691593603248796732013-10-16T17:38:51.155+01:002013-10-16T17:38:51.155+01:00It's no use throwing a cuddly postmodernist bl...It's no use throwing a cuddly postmodernist blanket over the issues. Schama is a professional historian. That is the reason he is on TV. He deserves to be judged by the standards of his profession - which include analyzing, not parroting, urban myth. He is also an apologist for Zionism and must be held to account for obscuring that movement's crimes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-59404098154741370242013-10-14T12:06:22.093+01:002013-10-14T12:06:22.093+01:00It was neither history nor propaganda. It was a st...It was neither history nor propaganda. It was a story. In fact the originally planned title was " The History of the Jews ". Obviously the editors and/or the writer/ presenter thought better of it. Like any story of length there is bound to be some urban ( or rural ) legends wrapped up in it somewhere. I found it helpful albeit very emotive. But emotions are facts too.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065171146167587918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-21643450302481701342013-10-13T11:28:55.787+01:002013-10-13T11:28:55.787+01:00I share your “diaspora-universalism”, but where yo...I share your “diaspora-universalism”, but where you see an “appropriately agonised and conflicted portrayal” I see toe-curling hypocrisy. What good is it to own up to the Nakba if you don't acknowledge it to be the deliberate culmination of Zionist strategy? What good is it to mention inter-war Arab protests if you don't explain the dispossessions and the “struggle for Jewish labour” that prompted them? Schama's bogus distinction between an idealized “Zionism of necessity” and a more brutal contemporary successor is nauseating.<br /><br />The whole series was a travesty. It was embarrassing to see Schama trot out the largely discredited story of Herzl's fateful change of heart while covering the Dreyfus affair (I imbibed that one at Hebrew school). More seriously, by a) asserting the historicity of even part of the Bible story and b) failing to raise the issue of the spread of Judaism through proselytism he conveniently maintains the Zionist myth of the ancestral homeland. And his falsifications in support of the racist mantra that Jews and non-Jews couldn't live side by side in modern Europe are unforgivable. How dare he ignore the heroic, finally victorious efforts of the Dreyfusards to uphold the principles of French republicanism? How dare he allege that non-Jewish Russian revolutionaries failed to come to the aid of Jewish victims of the 1905 pogroms? Or ignore the extraordinary upturn in (secular) Jewish fortunes and flowering of Yiddish culture in the early Soviet Union? This is propaganda, not history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-65412679517284811772013-10-11T02:33:52.745+01:002013-10-11T02:33:52.745+01:00i think this is brilliant and coincides with my ow...i think this is brilliant and coincides with my own views. I enjoyed the Schama programmes that i saw and agree with others that "a story" would have been a better description than "the story". I spent three months in he west bank three years ago. The wall is clearly not for security. If it were it would not have thousands of Israelis on the wrong side of it. It is in any case unfinished and easy to circumvent in many places. The Palestinians espoused a strategy of nonviolence many years ago and it is most likely this that dramatically lowered the number of suicide bombings. I do think it would be good to ask the BBC to run a series on the story of the Palestinians, especially as the myth is still put about that such a people never really existed! Am watching the Rageh Omar series on the Ottomans with interestsuebhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05249634228325536038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-76173938779280332542013-10-10T20:05:06.722+01:002013-10-10T20:05:06.722+01:00Well I don't know which claim you mean but to ...Well I don't know which claim you mean but to describe Schama as amoral is pretty ....well I don't know. It was " the story of the Jews ". Maybe that is the prob. Maybe it should have been " A story of the Jews " There is no doubt it would have been pretty welll spot on, it was very deffo a story of the Jews. Heaven forbid maybe Jews are just like everyone else, and they have lot's of stories. And maybe " a story of the Palestinians" would be an interesting sequalAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065171146167587918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-49399215211201651722013-10-10T05:26:38.606+01:002013-10-10T05:26:38.606+01:00Schama's claim is a profoundly amoral, ahistor...Schama's claim is a profoundly amoral, ahistorical one & even contravenes liberal Zionism which posits that Diaspora Jews DO have a stake in Israel by virtue of its claim to represent world JewryRichardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09214961481751442166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-48776400346545399972013-10-10T04:38:35.314+01:002013-10-10T04:38:35.314+01:00The truth is that Zionism welcomed antisemitism as...The truth is that Zionism welcomed antisemitism as a form of recruiting ideology for its own cause. Zionists also viewed assimilated Jews as of no value to them, which is why they did nothing for Jews in Europe in the 1940s. Sharma does not understand that Zionism was always an extremist ideology, which developed in response to other forms of extremist nationalism in Europe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-14163430556050694522013-10-09T22:33:03.399+01:002013-10-09T22:33:03.399+01:00Agree with almost everything you said, which echoe...Agree with almost everything you said, which echoes my own thoughts on Schama's programmes. I hope Schama reads it and enters a dialogue - he's on twitter as @simon_schama if you want to tweet him.Paul Seligmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18370438884642104930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-37370143197597297702013-10-09T22:31:00.321+01:002013-10-09T22:31:00.321+01:00Agree with just about everything you said, which e...Agree with just about everything you said, which echoes my own thoughts on Schama's programmes.Paul Seligmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18370438884642104930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997821105166599918.post-45446618919637161932013-10-09T19:35:33.049+01:002013-10-09T19:35:33.049+01:00Exhilarating stuff as ever.
This silence thing is...Exhilarating stuff as ever.<br /><br />This silence thing is the most frustrating factor in the whole business. We are told that Israel( the State of ) is the national home of the Jewish people and at the same time that we have to be silent, unless expressing unqualiified support for it's policies, in respect of it.<br /><br />The Board of Deputies has a strict policy against any criticism of Israel and at the same time talks of " peace ", " dialogue , " constructive engagement " etc etc<br /><br />I and others have spent most of this very day seeking to unravel it's latest insincere dealings with the Methodist Church, thankfully with a measure of success. If there is to be a Kairos or Buber moment among British Jews it will be in spite of and not because of those that self style themselves as " the leadership ". Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065171146167587918noreply@blogger.com