Jewish Identity in Politics

Jewish Identity in Politics

Adam Serwer thinks some American Jewish pundits are using identity templates borrowed from the African-American experience. Apparently he's being derogatory. I don't know enough about it to comment one way or the other, but I'd like to draw attention to some peculiarities on the edge of his argument.

The first is his thrice repeated allegation that Netanyahu called David Axelrod and Rahm Emanual "self hating Jews". This is very important to Serwer, and he gets quite worked up about it. Of course he has no source for the statement; nobody does. It's a cannard which fits lots of peoples' idea of how things should be, irrelevant of whether they are or not, and so gets repeated so many times it acquires the immunity of an article of faith.

Netanyahu's office has denied he made the statement (no, I have no link. It was on the radio). Also, contrary to what the media tells you, had he said it it would have been uncharacteristic of him, but as we say in Hebrew, try to prove you don't have a sister.

The second thing that saddened me was this

In the blogosphere, conservative Jews have a term for a group of prominent liberal Jewish bloggers who have been critical of Israel’s behavior in the region: the “Juicebox Mafia.” Two weeks ago, Jamie Kirchick, a blogger for Commentary and The New Republic, wrote that the “Juicebox Mafia crew” was motivated by “a visceral hatred” of its “Jewish heritage,” prompting Matthew Yglesias to assert his love of knishes and Woody Allen.

And so it has come to this. A prominent American Jewish blogger thinks there's a connection between knishes and liking Woody Allen, and being seriously Jewish; even if he was being facetious, Serwer takes him seriously.

Which, if you think about it for a moment, is far more damning than that "self-hating" line.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations