Leftist activism where Jews need not apply

[dorchadas]

So recently, Chicago Dyke March had an incident where they threw out three Jewish women marching with rainbow flags that had Magen David on them. The march organizers claimed that they made people feel unsafe and that the women had been asked to leave for expressing Zionist opinions at an explicitly pro-Palestinian march, but the women say they were approached and confronted about their flags. And since the march organizers put up a fundraiser for a self-care retreat where they used the phrase "from the river to the sea," leapt immediately to a Nazi analogy when explaining their decision:

"But, we need to be in control of our space just like you wouldn't accept Nazis in your synagogue."

-Alexis Martinez

and then used the phrase "Zios" when celebrating how they got the journalist who covered the initial incident demoted--they claim they didn't know the term or its usage, but I believe that as much as I'd believe someone who claimed they just happened to shorten the word "Hispanic" and why are people so angry. I believe the three Jewish women who were exiled.

And just recently, the Chicago Slut Walk said they stand with the Dyke March and also plan to ban "Zionist displays." What are those?

Is it any Jew who is identifiably Jewish? Is it merely the Magen David, a symbol of the Jewish people for centuries which long predates the modern nation of Israel? The Slutwalk claims that they're not the same thing, but I do not trust them to make that distinction. Slutwalk seems to uncritically believe the Dyke March's version of events, where the marchers were changing chants and being openly "Zionist," whatever they think that means. Of course, the Dyke March was happy to leave up comments about how Zionism is an insidious cancer (sound familiar?) and one of the women they banned was an Iranian Jew, and they also describe Zionism as a "White supremacist ideology."

Tell that to a Nazi.

There's a good article on the New York Times about the incident titled I’m Glad the Dyke March Banned Jewish Stars that talks about how intersectionality so often fails to consider Jews:

One of the women who was asked to leave the Dyke March, Eleanor Shoshany Anderson, couldn’t understand why she was kicked out of an event that billed itself as intersectional. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional,” she said. “I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”

She isn’t. Because though intersectionality cloaks itself in the garb of humanism, it takes a Manichaean view of life in which there can only be oppressors and oppressed. To be a Jewish dyke, let alone one who deigns to support Israel, is a categorical impossibility, oppressor and oppressed in the same person.

That’s why the march organizers and their sympathizers are now trying to smear Ms. Grauer as some sort of right-wing provocateur. Their evidence: She works at an organization called A Wider Bridge, which connects the L.G.B.T.Q. Jewish community in America with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Israel. The organizers are also making the spurious claim that the Jewish star is necessarily a symbol of Zionist oppression — a breathtaking claim to anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Jew forced to wear a yellow one under the Nazis.

I saw claims that A Wider Bridge has an anti-LGBTQ stance, which is just blatant lying. But it serves the struggle, so I guess it's okay.

This is why I give money and don't directly participate in activism. Israel is a complicated issue, reducing it to indigenous Palestinian vs white settler colonialist Israelis is 1) insultingly stupid and 2) blatantly applying American political dynamics to the rest of the world, and I sure as hell don't want some leftist crusader subjecting me to an inquisition about Israel while they decide if I'm a good Jew or a bad Jew. I don't trust them to be able to understand my answers, and I don't trust Slutwalk to be able to able to distinguish between "Zionist" and "non-Zionist" uses of the Magen David. The Slutwalk already has the attitude that most pointing out of antisemitism is spurious, so of course they're going to lean toward antisemitism. If you think a lot of it is fake--that's there's some kind of, say, world-wide conspiracy--in an environment where antisemitic incidents almost doubled in early 2017, then in practice, you're not going to end up much different from those people who immediately assume any black person shot by the police must have deserved it.

Shabbat Shalom.

Comments

[killertofuuu]

I wouldn't trust them to be able to make that distinction either. Holy shit!

I'm starting to wonder if we wouldn't all benefit tremendously from adding more Theology to basic school curriculum. We are taught History with little fuss, but religion's hand in shaping the story of humanity is undeniable. It's... pretty absurd to me to talk about one without the other, tbh. For example: I remember learning what had happened during WWII and the Holocaust in high school, and yes, I understood it was awful. What I didn't understand is WHY it happened. Not even a guess. It's not enough to say "oh, Hitler was an evil dictator" in my opinion. I don't feel like there's enough context for what happened without diving in to where the insidious stigma against Jews actually comes from. I realize this is a complex can of worms I'm suggesting we as a society open, but I think, if done right, it could only be to our benefit.

[dorchadas]

I agree entirely. I think too often the popular understanding of history and why terrible things happen comes down to taking particular historical figures and saying that it's because they're evil (bad understanding) or crazy (worse understanding). It completely removes them from our own worldview. Like, how could the Germans go along with the Nazis? Obviously the Nazis were kitten-killing evil, so either the Germans were evil or they didn't know.

I can see this now in how the Polish government treats Jewish victims of the Shoah from Poland as Poles when it's convenient to claim that Poland is an underdog, despite that many Jewish survivors were turned away with nothing or even murdered by their neighbors when they returned to their former villages and tried to reclaim their property.

Or, to hit closer to home, I expect most Americans don't know that our own countrymen sold postcards of lynchings.

History in school is generally an overview, but I think a little more depth on some subjects is warranted. I'm going to blame standardized tests for making history cover the entire world over and over and over again. They're just teaching to the test because it's legally required.

[tilmon]

A couple decades ago, a friend of mine went with her atheist group to support a Pride event. They had banners saying something like "Atheists support LGBT rights". And they were told to leave, that atheists weren't welcome at LGBT events.

I only share this because this kind of bigoted gatekeeping has been happening for a long time, but no one pays it any mind unless it's their own group that is targeted. Somehow, people seem to think that bigotry is fine as long as it's directed at "those others". Eventually, bigotry is directed at everyone, though, and religious history makes this perfectly clear. But not only do we not talk about bigotry, we don't even use the word anymore. Everything is conflated into "racism", even when race isn't the issue.

I've been watching in consternation as Muslims are painted as "non-white", Jews and Christians as "white", "white" as oppressor and "non-white" as oppressed, and everyone who doesn't fit the categories effectively silenced, as pointing out one's own existence is deemed tantamount to trading with the enemy. It's faulty logic, it's dangerous logic, and it drives away people who would otherwise support intersectionality and greater diversity.

[dorchadas]

I absolutely agree. There's a tendency on the English-speaking web to apply American racial dynamics to any situations because of how many Americans are on the internet, and then they run into a situation like the Sami in Scandinavia and spend time trying to figure out who the white people are so they know who the bad guy is.

There was a comment our old rabbi made how the reason Jews are always opposed to authoritarian regimes is because we know we'll always be on the list of enemies eventually. Sadly we're not that unified against oppression in practice, but your comment on the others reminded me of it.