On May 6, 2006, at 4:57 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On 5/6/06, Joel Schalit <managingeditor at tikkun.org> wrote:
>> Nevertheless, as America gets more Christian, Jews do experience it.
>
> That's all the more reasons why Jewish organizations should make
> concerted efforts to fight Christian Zionists (whose so-called
> "pro-Israel" [actually just pro-Likud/pro-neo-con] politicking is
> largely motivated by their anti-Semitic theology) and to ally with
> Muslim organizations. But what's happening, as you recognize, is the
> opposite.
Yes - I agree completely, Yoshie. And there is a lot of opposition to these phenomena within America's Jewish community. However, it doesn't consistently come from the religious leadership cadre. Some, but it is by no means a generalized phenomena. Instead, you find it in varying degrees in Jewish anti-occupation and Left Zionist groups, and in the work of individual journalists and scholars. Its more atomized in this regard. It'd be great if the religious leadership was more consistently enlightened in this regard, but its not.
>
>> That is part of the reason why there is a renewed emphasis in Jewish
>> cultural circles to re-identify as Jewish - from more conservative
>> cultural projects emphasizing "Jewish continuity" sponsored by the
>> Bronfmans, to extremely progressive publications ranging from Heeb to
>> Jewschool.com and radicaltorah.org.
>
> I believe that the latter ought to be encouraged. I think it's good
> for Jews, as well as other ethnic whites like Irish, Italians, Greek,
> etc., not to assimilate into becoming "generic whites."
Absolutely. One of the things we're trying to do at Tikkun is give more support to these efforts.
>
>> Prejudice doesn't have to be an instrument of state policy to
>> exist, or
>> have the capacity to worsen.
>
> Sure, but we ought to recognize progress, the result of efforts made
> by past and present anti-racists.
Yes, you couldn't be more correct.
>
> You see, I'm Japanese and irreligious, so it's not like I know nothing
> of effects of personal prejudice of racists and religious bigots
> firsthand. People of my national origin were the only people to be
> put into concentration camps in this country during WW2, as you
> obviously know. Does the prejudice against the Japanese still
> exist? Yes, a little. Can it worsen some? It did, shortly before
> deflation
> hit Japan, when Americans were scared that Japs will buy up the whole
> country and auto workers were making bonfires of Japanese cars. Is it
> likely that it will become a state policy of rounding up all Japanese
> and putting us into concentration camps? Not bloody likely. The same
> goes for Jews. Actually, the position of Jewish and Japanese
> Americans in this country are in many ways similar: there are
> right-wingers who don't think well of us, and yet we are, on the
> whole, doing better economically than the US average.
I think this is a very fair comparison, Yoshie. Where the "fear" inspiring threat of traditional forms of anti-Semitism remains for the Jewish community is in the evolution of traditional anti-Semitism from the practice of state racism to a new racist common sense about Jews amongst Evangelical Christians. What Jews confront today, to put it succinctly, is cultural - as opposed to institutional anti- Semitism. it seeks binding political consequences, but at present has no institutional expression.
This takes two forms: first, overt theological incitement against Jews in mainstream evangelical culture: the continuous monologue coming from within Christian broadcasting culture against Jews (ranging from radio and television Bible commentary, and enormously popular films like The Passion); Second, from Christian Zionism itself, which most Jews experience as being both disingenuous and encouragement to immigrate to Israel to help make America religiously pure.
I'd weigh greater emphasis on the prior example. Many American Jews pay a lot of attention to what is said about them in the Evangelical Christian community (the Passion was a great wake-up call, even though it came from a Catholic perspective.) And they connect the dots with current Christian/Republican legislative efforts to reintegrate church and state, which is why the religious leadership of the Jewish community has of late come out swinging against such efforts - even those who ally themselves with Evangelical groups over such issues as Darfur. Its contradictory, but its what is happening.
>
> We ought to recognize that one of the main targets of institutional
> discrimination are not us but Muslims, especially Muslim immigrants
> from countries on Washington's ever-changing enemies list.
I absolutely agree with you. There ought to be every effort made to make anti-Muslim discrimination a top priority in contemporary anti- racist concern, and to develop a true sense of priority in this regard.
Just to add to what I was saying earlier here - and I am reminded of this in your request here - one thing that I think a lot of Jews are aware of is how similar the structure of contemporary anti-Muslim polemics are to traditional anti-Jewish polemics. Indeed, in terms of a reminder of how persistent these old forms of prejudice are, today's anti-Islamic rhetoric in the US is a horrific reminder that the old forms of prejudice are still present, just taking a different semitic community as its object.
>
> But this fact goes not only underestimated but anti-Muslim prejudice
> impacts leftists and leftist organizations, too, in a way that
> anti-Jewish or anti-Asian or even anti-Latino and anti-Black
> prejudices don't.
Sure. I think the distinction to be made here - in light of what I was saying earlier - is that its a difference between cultural and political racisms. What persons of Islamic descent in the US suffer from is both, whereas at present Jews experience more of a cultural (read religious) racism.
>
> --
> Yoshie
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