03-05-2003, 09:27 PM
"It often sounds like "jew can do no wrong". And any criticism of Israel or jews is indeed met with cries of "EV0L ANTISEMITE!"."
And possibly with enormous justification.T here is no problem with criticizing a Jew. Nor do I have a problem criticizing an African, or a Korean, or an Australian. The key here is the accusative singular. One jew. An individual, on his or her merits or lack thereof.
The idea of criticizing "the jews" as one single group is absurd and anti-semitic. The Jewish religion is fair game, Jewish cuisine is fair game, Jews (the group comprised of non-consenting individuals) are NOT. Very much not. Any generalization, be it a criticism or a compliment, could not possibly apply to every last one of them individually, and hence discriminates for no better reason than sloppy or hateful thinking.
That is what is unacceptable. That's the road of classic anti-semitism. If individual Jews irk you, fine. If you don't like Klesmer, they're your ears. If you don't like their religious conception of Monotheism to be weak, go ahead, make their day. If you start thinking about them as "the other" (collective noun), you've started down a very dangerous and loathsome path.
Jester
And possibly with enormous justification.T here is no problem with criticizing a Jew. Nor do I have a problem criticizing an African, or a Korean, or an Australian. The key here is the accusative singular. One jew. An individual, on his or her merits or lack thereof.
The idea of criticizing "the jews" as one single group is absurd and anti-semitic. The Jewish religion is fair game, Jewish cuisine is fair game, Jews (the group comprised of non-consenting individuals) are NOT. Very much not. Any generalization, be it a criticism or a compliment, could not possibly apply to every last one of them individually, and hence discriminates for no better reason than sloppy or hateful thinking.
That is what is unacceptable. That's the road of classic anti-semitism. If individual Jews irk you, fine. If you don't like Klesmer, they're your ears. If you don't like their religious conception of Monotheism to be weak, go ahead, make their day. If you start thinking about them as "the other" (collective noun), you've started down a very dangerous and loathsome path.
Jester