Shukert says the piece is the first in a continuing series honoring people who made a lasting contribution to the world and who also happened to be, unfortunately, Jew haters. She isn't including the real batshit crazy anti-Semites, just the sort of harmless ones. In her words:

(M)y typical anti-Semite is rather a genteel one, the kind that stand around in country clubs in pressed white linen and tennis clothes, drinking cocktails and flashing their pearly teeth like some kind of advertisement for Presbyterian toothpaste.

Wagner, Adolf Hitler's favorite composer, wins, she writes, because although the composer was involved in all sorts of anti-Jewish propaganda, he was still "a genius; an irascible, iconoclastic man." She explains:

Wagner, in his operas, was among the first artists to make use of cultural and nationalistic tropes as subject matter—not in purely folkloric terms, but as the underpinnings for transcendent high art. In retrospect, the canonization of these old Germanic legends of Nordic heroes makes us (especially as Jews) cringe, having seen such names and archetypes splashed liberally across the primitive websites of white supremacists and people who sell SS paraphernalia on eBay.

But to understand how Wagner helped the Jews, Shukert explains, a little substitution is in order. Simply take Wagner's use of cultural tropes, combine it with his theories of "total art" performance (i.e., music, story, dance, stage craft) and what have you got? The seeds for American musical theatre, says Shukert, one of the greatest Jewish cornerstones in our country.

It's simple, Shukert writes:

You take a cultural archetype from a storied (and comforting) past—say a jovial Jewish dairyman with five troublesome daughters. You add a little Americanized Gesamtkunstwerk, a dash of New York chutzpah…and bam!

That’s right. Without Richard Wagner there would be no Fiddler on the Roof.

Haha. I don't care how flimsy her argument is, it's enough to make Wagner and his Nazi cronies shake in their graves. Bravo!

Next month I am starting a new column over at Jewcy which will center on the experience of Israelis living in the United States. In preparation, I have been reflecting on my own experiences in the diaspora. Yesterday, to my surprise, an old memory bubbled-up to the surface of my consciousness.

In 1985, seeking economic opportunity my father moved our family from Israel to San Antonio Texas. I was nine years old at the time. I knew no English (other than “hello”, “goodbye”, “Miss Piggy”, and “shut up”) and I was confidant that the IDF could kick America’s ass.

A few years into our stay, my father took us out for a boat ride on a lake. When lunch time came I was horrified to find out that my sandwich was coated with mustered. I protested (loudly and repeatedly) that I had specifically asked for a sandwich without mustered. Whereby my father looked at me with frustration, snatched the sandwich from my hand, and threw it out into the lake.

Embarrassed and angered, I looked around to make sure nobody saw what had happened. When the cost was clear, I gaped at my stern old-man and cried:

“How could you do that? You dirty Israeli from Hadera! How could you do that?”

Not able to comprehend what they just heard, my mother and father looked at me with blank cow-like stares. As if it was not enough that the words “dirty Israeli” flowed effortlessly from my mouth, I had also inserted some Israeli socio-economic class discrimination for good measure. Was a dirty Israeli from Tel-Aviv superior to one from Hadera?

After the initial shock wore off, my mother began to laugh, while my father, visibly hurt by my words, intimated that if I continue to talk like that I would soon be reunited with my mustered-laden sandwich.

Years have passed since the sandwich incident (a classic inter-generational immigrant moment if there ever was one.) As a teenager I had returned to live in Israel, and in my twenties I moved back to the US. I have thankfully outgrown some of those early complexes, but the subject of Israelis living abroad (especially the US) still fascinates me.

Look out for my new Jewcy column starting in September.

Here is an excerpt:

The historian J. Rufus Fears noted that great leaders – from Pericles to Lincoln to Churchill – share four characteristics. They are anchored in principles, guided by a moral compass, posses a vision, and have the ability to build consensus to achieve their vision. These are the qualities that differentiate them as statesmen as opposed to mere politicians.

Unfortunately, the current leadership in Israel is the epitome of mere politicians. Prime-Minister Olmert, for example, is a drunken captain at the helm of a ship headed for an iceberg. An uninspiring power-hungry man mired in corruption and lacking vision, he is leading his country into disaster.

The truth is that people matter. For good or ill, individuals can change the course of history. Recently, the United States has seen what remarkable change the right person can achieve. A tall African-American man did what most thought impossible. No, I am not talking about Barack Obama, but Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett.

To read more, click here. As always, if the spirit moves you, please leave a comment at the end of the article.

"Jewcer Roi Ben-Yehuda wrote up his recent trip to Barcelona for Haaretz. If you want to see antisemitism done right --- or if you want to restore your confidence in the importance of Zionism --- go to Europe and then wait around a while:

If the presence of swastikas were not enough, Barcelona also has the dubious honor of being home to Europe's most infamous neo-Nazi bookstore, brazenly titled "Europa Bookstore: Persecuted Books - The Truth Will Set You Free."...

The books in the store were a literary mix covering revisionism, fascism, Israel-bashing, Hitler-praising, anti-immigration and homophobia. To this was added DVDs and CDs of Hitler's "greatest hits."

In my best Spanglish, I told a young woman who asked if I needed help that I would like to take some pictures and talk to her. She hesitated and then declined, but told me that I could "come back tomorrow and speak to the leader."...

[A]s I walked around I had a "for the six million!" moment. One of those moments that lead Jews to do something about injustice. So I took out my camera and started taking pictures...

"Give me your camera," she had raised her voice. "I want to see the pictures. I want to eliminate the pictures!"

"Leader"; "eliminate." The great thing about European fascists and racists is that they traditionally haven't put up much of a pretense of not being fascists and racists. Sadly, though, the new crop of the European far-right seems to be taking trans-Atlantic PR cues. Even the most deranged neo-Nazis on these shores feel compelled to wrap their hatred up in some public interest cause --- like saving the wombs of white women from the Pornocaust. So it's comforting, in its way, to learn that there's a little corner of Catalonia where the good stuff, the real unadulterated neo-Nazism is served straight up, no chaser."

Elsewhere, our favorite Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer (The Treatment, Nina's Tragedies, Florentene) is about to go totally Audrey Tautou in a prequel to the DaVinci Code.

Finally, the media synergy between Jewlicious and Shemspeed records continues with this DJ Balagan re-mix in honor of Israel @ 60.

Rachel Barenblat una de las editoras de Zeek, joven escritora y estudiante de rabinato advierte que no se trata de una fusión, es “una empresa conjunta”. Jewcy busca ser un hosting para la publicación en red de sitios editoriales para “lectores jóvenes y culturalmente omnívoros en búsqueda de sentidos y comunidad” y Zeek desea más lectores y una presencia sólida y flexible en internet. Se trata de un win-win porque la debilidad de Jewcy eran la ausencia de contenidos más académicos y la traba para Zeek era un diseño con pocas posibilidades de interacción y "aislado". Con todo, los archivos de Zeek 2002-2007 siguen alojados en el antiguo dominio, y van a permanecer allí. Pero el nuevo material se publicará ahora en jewcy.com / Zeek. La revista mantendrá su independencia editorial y continuará con la publicación de la versión impresa. El último número (120 páginas) de marzo pasado es una antología del espacio ruso-judío sobre arte, ficción y poesía.

El número de mayo está imperdible: El 60° aniversario de la independencia de Israel. Y no crean que se trata de un tema repetido. Zeek durante años ha reflexionado sobre asuntos judíos con prescindencia de Israel, una suerte de política no oficial que contiene la convicción (compartida) que el desarrollo del judaísmo no puede basarse de modo compulsivo en la cuestión israelí. Algo que la judeidad norteamericana tienen claro y que a la kehilá latinoamericana le cuesta asumir: Que la judeidad no se agota en la reflexión postsionista, por el contrario esta última es parte de una larga y feraz creación de lo judío contemporáneo. Cómo sea, este número o desea escapar a la mirada aguda de sus columnistas. Ya están online tres poemas de Rivka Miriam, (Jerusalén 1952- ) la hija del renombrado escritor idischista Leib Rochma y una entrevista al director de Joseph Cedar's Beaufort, la primera película israelí nominada para un Premio Oscar desde 1984.

Espero que la unión Zeek/Jewcy tenga los pingües o debería decir “jugosos” (Jewcy significa algo así como judío-jugoso) resultados que esperan sus entusiastas responsables. Por mi parte aún parte aún persevero en poder en algún momento emprender una aventura similar a Zeek/Jewcy o la más relajada Heeb/Jewishschool pero en lengua española. Experimentos previos sirven como ensayo y error. La Palabra Ismaelita y El Golem Chiliani por mi parte; Kiosk la prima aventura de Paula Calderon por traer aire fresco a los jóvenes judeochilenos; y las trasandinas Tel Aví, (en broma), Horizonte (en serio) y La Voz Joven (en clave informativa) son algunos ejemplos de este difícil derrotero.

Lo que pasa es que el arribo de un soporte que repase a contrapelo "lo judío" por parte de sus "habitantes" andinos es ineluctable. si se me permite un poco de Ostalgie insurreccional: Como Fidel dijo en los 60's "Nosotros consideramos que este continente tiene en su vientre una criatura que se llama Revolución, que viene en camino y que inexorablemente, por ley biológica, por ley social, por ley de la historia tiene que nacer. Y nacerá de una forma o de otra. El parto será institucional, en un hospital o será en una casa. Serán ilustres médicos o será la partera quien recoja la criatura.
Pero de todas maneras, habrá parto".

Es decir; No cabe duda que al igual que en América del Norte, Europa e Israel, Latinoamérica es fértil campo para una reflexión desenfadada y critica respecto a su habitar judío. Existen las personas apropiadas (jóvenes judíos chilenos, argentinos, íberos, aztecas, olím, etc.), están las vivencias tan propias de nuestra vivencia latina, la visión común a sido compartida en varias ocasiones; falta el tiempo, la correlación de intereses y la resolución de ponerse en movimiento.

Roi Ben-Yehuda is hand-wringing over on Jewcy about the way Jews for Jesus are being treated in Israel. He is upset that the Jews for Jesus are not being accepted as Jews, and notes,

"If we are going to say that Hitler and not Halacha determines who is a Jew, then we need to make room for Jews who also believe in Jesus — as Hitler would have done."

Ben-Yehuda has a good point, and I would note that when the Zionist Entity first decided that Hitler was the ultimate authority on who is a Jew, no one could have predicted this problem specifically, or that there would be problems generally. After all, why should there be problems when the Zionists reasonably decided to express their Jewish pride both religiously and as a nation by embracing Hitler as grand posek? Clearly, for their time, the Zionist Entity did the right thing, just…Jewish history took an unpredictable turn, and this ostensibly reasonable choice for an ultimate Jewish authority proved to have shortcomings…but you can’t blame the impeccable reasoning of the Zionists for its time.

"Israel's beauty shines brightest in its diversity. The country possesses one of the most culturally and physically diverse societies on the planet. No matter the kind of Jew, from Yemenite to Ethiopian to Polish, from Orthodox to Reform to secular, there is a place for you under the Mediterranean sun. Yet there is at least one group of Jews who is excluded from the Zionist mosaic. They are the Messianic Jews --- a religious community that follows a Torah inspired life-style while believing in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

To read more, click here. As always, if the spirit moves you, please leave a comment at the end of the article.

Here is an excerpt:

Today’s humanistic ideals try to whitewash our emotions, but as Ben Yehuda points out, wrath and vengeance are, to a certain degree, completely healthy responses to persecution and pain. There may be portions of the Haggadah that bother us, or that seem callous in light of contemporary wisdom, but there’s still value there. At the very least, we can say it’s important to understand how wounded and angry Jews were for so many generations that this became a part of our story. And if you think about the Exodus itself, it’s not hard to imagine Jews leaving Egypt thinking that they’d like the wrath and fury of God to pour down on the Egyptians who had enslaved them.

To read more, click here.

Here is an excerpt:

Q: Many people see religion as an inflexible force that perpetuates the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews, yet at the Sulha Peace Project religion is harnessed as a force for peace and unity. Can you speak to the use of religion as an instrument for peace?

A: There a saying in Hebrew: hadinim nimtakim beshorsham, which means “stern judgment is sweetened from the root.” I believe that religion is at the root of both the conflict and the solution. At our gatherings, we have all kinds of people – religious & secular - but we do use the gems of religion as possibilities for healing. I think that one of the problems with the Oslo peace process for example was that the religious were kept out of the discussion. There was zero mention of the root of peace in the Koran and Torah, for example. Something was missing. For most of the people who are involved in this conflict, religion matters. If you touch the positive part of religion, it has highly medicinal power.

Q: On your website, you say that the goal of the Sulha Peace project is to heal and reconcile the children of Abraham. Why the emphasis on Abraham?

A: Abraham is our common father. Likewise, Sarah and Hagar are our mothers. We all come from the same family, the same tribe.

Q: I am sure that such recognition goes a long way --- but isn't Abraham also the father who is willing to sacrifice his children in the name of God? Isn't Abraham’s relationship with his children also an apt metaphor for the willingness of authority figures in this conflict to blindly sacrifice their children on the altar of some religious or secular ideology?

A: I personally think Abraham is an archetype. I realize that he is a very complex figure. We can go into a discussion about the binding of Isaac/Ishmael, or how he let Hagar and Ishmael go out into the desert (though he made a point to visit them there), but I see him as a figure of compassion and humanity. He opened his tent to the four directions, and provided hospitality to strangers. Legend goes he would wash the feet of pilgrims and feed them. He defended the innocent at Sodom and Gomorrah. In the Kabbalah he’s related to unconditional loving-kindness, as the creator of the morning prayers, as flowing water.

To read more, click here.

Key quote:

Not surprisingly, some Israelis and Jews have had a problem with the festival - seeing it as a degenerating sign that Israel is turning into a new Sodom and Gomorrah: a sinful society devoid of god consciousness. Or to put it in secular terms, a society in which the altruistic “we” has transformed into the self-serving and hedonistic “I.”

But having the largest collection of vibrating dildos is part of what it means to be the only democracy in the Middle East. This is the price of being a western-oriented free society. Moreover, far from being an anathema to the Jewish state, the values of the sextival are in keeping with the Zionist ethos of normalizing and transforming the very physicality of the Jewish people. Zionism was not only a nationalistic movement to safeguard a people and a culture, it was also an erotic revolution: one that sought to create tanned and muscular Jews, to equalize the relations between the sexes, and within its socialist parameters to reject the very tradition and concept of marriage.

To read more, click here. Please feel free to leave your thought and comments below the original Jewcy article.

The impact is massive, in the yard of what later turns out to be a kindergarten, just across the street, ten meters away from where we are taking cover. Kassam rockets do not fall down: They strike. There is a deafening explosion and a cloud of fire, smoke, and dirt. Car alarms instantly go off, there is no silence, no respite, it is all noise.

My ears are ringing and I am thinking a mix of "fucking-shit-what-a-rush-that-was-fucking-close" and "sorry mom" (she asked me to stay away from the Gaza border). Thoughts of God are in there too, somewhere. I look at the people around me. Shira is sitting between the two other girls and looks like she wants the earth to swallow her. "Are you OK?" I say. She nods through her tears. "Are you OK?" I repeat and look at the other guys. Everyone says that they are OK. "Avi, you're bleeding," I inform him. "I know," he says and smiles as he touches a scratch on his face. He is 19 and just started his army service in the Armor Corps. He is a tough guy. "You're bleeding from your fucking nose, too," I point out. "I'm OK," he assures us.

To read more, click here.

The contents of the letter explain that the undesirable state of Jewish-Muslims relations is a product of misinformation and misunderstandings. Pointing to a common ground, the letter calls for reconciliation between the two faiths.

"There is more in common between our religions and peoples than is known to each of us. It is precisely due to the urgent need to address such political problems as well as acknowledge our shared values that the establishment of an inter-religious dialogue between Jews and Muslims in our time is extremely important.

"Failure to do so will be a missed opportunity. Memories of positive historical encounters will dim and the current problems will lead to an increasing rift and more common misunderstandings between us."

Writing in Jewcy, Ali Eteraz observes that while the letter is an important "baby step" in the right direction, the fight against Muslim anti-semitism is going to demand a bit more.

"If there is a hope for a reduction to anti-Semitism among Muslims, there will have to be more letters of harmony until Arab, Iranian and Indo-Pak scholars feel emboldened enough to take a stand on the matter as well. However, there will also have to be genuine scholarly works that deconstruct the various anti-Semitic interpretations that scholars have assigned to Jews in the past. An honest and modern interpretation of texts is as necessary as conciliatory letters."

Money Quote: 

It seems to me that the controversy surrounding Smith’s original comments revolves around a basic misunderstanding of the actor’s words. Smith did not say that Hitler was good, or that his actions were good, rather he said that Hitler thought he was doing good. As the old saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Don’t believe Smith, then take Hitler’s own words for it: In a speech to the Reichstag given 1936 Hitler said, “I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work.” A person who believes that he is fulfilling God’s will is indeed a person who believes that his actions are ultimately good.

Note to the JDL - Will Smith is no Mel Gibson. The man was simply making a correct if mundane statement about the man who led his country to infamy. There was nothing anti-Semitic about the actor’s observation: I am sure that Smith would have said the same of Bin-Laden, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Ganges Kahn.

As far as I am concerned, the only off component to Smith’s comment is his assertion that Hitler just needed “reprogramming”. Unlike computer programs, people’s values and believes are not something that can be easily changed. Furthermore, there is something very cult-like (Scientology anyone?) about the notion that people can and ought to be programmed in the first place. Perhaps Smith has acted in one too many sci-fi movies. Other than that, I have no qualms with the man.

To read rest of the article, click here.

My Jewcy thoughts on the controversy surrounding Will Smith's Hitler comment.

Excerpt: 

"While I believe that Smith’s original comments express an acute philosophical and psychological naivety, I cannot partake in the indignation over the actor's words. Smith may be clueless when it comes to understanding human nature, but to say that his words desecrate the memory of Hitler’s victims is clearly to overreact.

Note to the JDL— Will Smith is no Mel Gibson. The man was simply taking a general idea to its logical conclusion: Humans strive to do good, Hitler was a human, therefore Hitler strived to do good. This is not an anti-Semitic idea, as much as it is a fluffy statement about human behaviour. I am sure that Smith would have said the same of Bin-Laden, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Ganges Kahn.

Not convinced? Still want to boycott his movies and write to Obama? Well, I suggest you take up your anger with another person who famously said: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Her name, Anne Frank."

To read rest of article, click here.

Money Quote:

While it is granted that living democracies must find a balance between the need for security and the need for freedom, the existence and implementation of this law goes beyond the pale. It is simply not the place of the Israeli government to say where on earth (literally!) its citizen can and cannot travel. Warning, yes. Restrictions, no.

The truth of the matter is that Israelis abroad run a risk of being kidnapped no matter where they go – from Dubai and India to London and Argentina. Indeed, the most famous case of an Israeli civilian being abducted, the kidnapping of Elhanan Tennenbaum by Hezbollah in 2000, took place in Dubai - a country not considered enemy territory by Israel. Should Israelis therefore be barred from travelling anywhere on the globe they could potentially be harmed? Bottom line: the government, as an editorial in Haaretz put it, "is not the nanny of its citizens."

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