From a post on Oy Bay (curtsy to Muzzlewatch) entitled “San Francisco Art Gallery Censors Writing and Art Work as Too Zionist”:
Himmelberger Gallery, a well-known art gallery located in San Francisco’s tony Union Square, has decided to cancel plans to publish an art catalogue of one of its represented artists, noted author Alan Kaufman […] The gallery objects to the expressly Zionist focus of several essay contributions to the catalogue by well-known authors and journalists[…]
The catalogue was to present 15 of Kaufman’s paintings which are under contract to the gallery and whose subjects range from the Holocaust to Israel to the New Antisemitism. The gallery’s prices for the works in question have been cited at between $3,275 and $36,000. The works have hung in the gallery and a cross-section of them also appeared on the gallery website.
At a meeting between gallery head David Himmelberger and Kaufman, Himmelberger surprised the artist and author with an eleventh hour decision not to proceed with the catalogue due to the Zionist “agenda” of the essays as well as some of the paintings. Himmelberger said that such a presentation was antithetical to the aims of the gallery, which promotes “international understanding” and forswears all forms of nationalism and religion. But the authors see this as a transparent example of the way in which the word Zionism has been exiled from civil discourse and has been turned by the cultural establishment into a refugee of a word, a pariah of an idea, and a euphemism for Antisemitism.
Oy Bay also quotes a statement released by the “Zionist Five,” who are the five authors who were to be published in the catalogue. From reading the statement, my guess is that it’s not the word “Zionism” that scared the publisher away, so much as the extremism of the views presented. For example:
Let us, then, be perfectly frank about one thing. To vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw Zionism politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Jewish man, woman and child in the world today.
Note the “for any reason whatsoever.” Next time I hear someone deny that Zionists mix up criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism, I hope I remember that quote; according to these folks, criticizing Zionism for any reason at all isn’t just anti-Semitic, it’s wishing Genocide upon the Jews.
Some thoughts:
1) It’s not censorship for a private publisher to decide not to publish a book. Kaufman’s belief that he’s been “censored for expression of a Zionist perspective” is over the top.
2) When I first read this story, I thought perhaps Kaufman was suffering from another form of censorship: When a publisher owns the rights to publish a work but refuses to publish it. I think that is censorship, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here; the gallery’s lawyer has said that Kaufman is free to publish the catalogue elsewhere.
3) There’s another form of de facto censorship, which is when objections to a point of view are so overwhelming that that point of view becomes impossible to publish, or is in some other significant way cut out of “the marketplace of ideas.” It’s implausible that’s the situation here, though; one gallery owner declined to print one catalogue, but most of the authors in the catalogue are published elsewhere.
Kaufman might argue that San Francisco’s “marketplace of ideas” effectively disallows pro-Zionist discussion. If that’s true, then that’s a reasonable complaint on his part. On the other hand, the fact that his paintings were displayed in a major San Francisco gallery, apparently without being protested, suggests that the San Francisco experience may not be as bleak as all that.
4) Kaufman sees an equivalence between his situation and that of Black men (what about Black women?) in “the old South”:
“My standing up and declaring Zionist art in San Francisco is really like a black man standing up in the old South and declaring himself a free man.”
The comparison trivializes slavery and Jim Crow, in much the same way that stupid concentration camp comparisons trivialize the Holocaust. (I do think that comparisons can be worthwhile when they’re intelligently made, as The Sideshow argues.)
Preventing the dissemination of information is censorship if and only if it is done by a governmental entity. So:
1) It’s not censorship for a private publisher to decide not to publish a book.
True.
2) When a publisher owns the rights to publish a work but refuses to publish it. I think that is censorship.
I disagree. Censorship from the viewpoint of the producer of the work is an involuntary process, but when you sell the rights that’s a voluntary act where not publishing the work at all is a known possibility. If you don’t want that to happen, then write the contract so that the publisher has “x” amount of time to publish the work or else the rights revert back to the seller.
As far as this guy goes, he’s not being censored. He’s just not finding a market for his ideas. If he doesn’t like it, let him raise some funds, hire out an empty warehouse, and exhibit his works himself. It’s a free country.
vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw
=
to criticize?
Okay… I just hope you apply that definition uniformly.
I think that’s right on. After all, to vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw the PLO politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Palestinian man, woman and child in the world today.
And thus Israel is a tool of genocide, right?
Right?
—Myca
Myca–
That is a pretty serious misreading of what Tara wrote; she was not talking about the policies of Israel towards the Palestinians, but about Amp’s equation of the terms “vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw” with “criticize.” Here, again, is the relevant portion of the original post:
Quoting the Zionist 5: Let us, then, be perfectly frank about one thing. To vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw Zionism politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Jewish man, woman and child in the world today.
Amp’s words:Note the “for any reason whatsoever.” Next time I hear someone deny that Zionists mix up criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism, I hope I remember that quote; according to these folks, criticizing Zionism for any reason at all isn’t just anti-Semitic, it’s wishing Genocide upon the Jews.
Absent some proof that what the art gallery was doing was engaging in something other than “vilify[ing], marginaliz[ing], suppress[ing] or outlaw[ing] Zionism politically, socially or culturally”–and it does seem to me that refusing to publish something is a qualitatively different thing than engaging what you are refusing to publish in a critical way; in other words, absent some proof that what the art gallery was doing was criticizing and that it is the Zionist 5 who are inaccurate in their characterization of what happened, then I think Amp’s easy equation of what the Zionist 5 accuse the gallery of with “criticism” is indeed problematic in the way Tara suggests. Tara was not suggesting that what the Zionist 5 had to say should be applied equally.
Three points.
1) If Tara disagrees with the Zionist 5, that’s great, and she’s certainly free to say so. If not, I’d like to apply the same ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’ standards across the board.
2) If refusing to publish overtly political works of art in a nonpolitical setting is vilifying, marginalizing, suppressing or outlawing, then I’d like to apply that standard across the board.
3) As much as I can see some problems with calling refusing to publish criticism, I see far, far more with calling it vilifying, marginalizing, suppressing or outlawing. I mean . . . really? All the gallery seems to have been saying is that theirs was not the appropriate forum, and they’re being called, literally, genocidal.
At that point, whether or not ‘criticism’ was used 100% appropriately seems to take a backseat to whether or not genocide is being used appropriately.
—Myca
Richard and Tara,
Given the extremity and tone of the Zionist Five’s stated views — and their extreme overreaction to a gallery saying it doesn’t want to publish their catalogue (“this was not merely censorship of me: this was censorship of an entire community, of my people, the Jewish People”) — I’m finding it hard to believe that there is any harsh criticism of Israel that they wouldn’t find “vilifying or marginalizing.”
If you really think, from your experiences with defenders of Israel, that the Zionist Five folks would respond to the claim that Israel oppresses Palestinians and can reasonably be blamed for that with a calm “I recognize that you can say that Israel is an oppressor state without being an anti-Semite, although I personally disagree,” then thats your opinion.
But as I look at their rhetoric:
I don’t buy it. I really think that their language — “regardless of how subtle or seemingly innocuous,” for example — makes it clear they do not, in fact, make the distinctions you’re assuming they make.
However, I admit that I’m inferring that. Perhaps I’m mistaken.
Ron, when publishers use contract law or copyright law to keep works out of print, how can you say that’s not something that involves the government? It’s illegal for them to publish their own work; anything being illegal involves the government.
That being said, I’m interested in being able to talk about censorship in actual practice, not just censorship in theory. If someone or some view is effectively shut out of being published, or being able to participate meaningfully in the marketplace of ideas, then I will talk about that as a form of censorship, although I acknowledge that this is an expansive definition of what “censorship” means.
“To vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw Zionism politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Jewish man, woman and child in the world today.”
Criticism is not the same as villification, marginalization or suppresion. To ban these topics from public discourse is oppresive. Sure the gallery has a right to feature or not feature anything it wants to. But that does not mean that it is right.
Amp, you’re the one who made the equation between suppression/outlawing/marginalization/vilification and criticism.
THEY’RE saying that suppression/outlawing/marginalization/vilification of Zionism is anti-Semitic. YOU’RE saying that that means that they think any criticism of Zionism is anti-Semitic. That’s why I said that I expect you, then, to apply that equation consistently, and treat the vilification of women and feminism NOT as misogyny or sexism, but as criticism.
YOU’RE also saying that the litmus test of criticizing Zionism is accepting the idea that Israel is an oppressor state. Basically, if you don’t agree that Israel is an oppressor state, then you’re unwilling to criticize Zionism. Um, huh?
Further, from the quote that you brought, it seems that, on the contrary, they are being careful to distinguish antisemitism from ignorance and apathy, but also pointing out that ignorance and apathy can have catastrophic consequences for Jews, even in the absence of malicious antisemitism. I wouldn’t have thought that that would be controversial.
What I think you *really* disagree with is their contention that the campaign against Zionism to which they refer would seek or would be content with the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish homeland with Jewish self-rule. That, we could argue about.
Criticism is not the same as villification, marginalization or suppresion. To ban these topics from public discourse is oppresive. Sure the gallery has a right to feature or not feature anything it wants to. But that does not mean that it is right.
yes. and what the gallery did was criticism, not vilification, marginalization, or suppression. But Kaufman then goes on to explicitly call what was done “vilification, marginalization, suppression, or outlawing.” Aside from being utterly hyperbolic equivocation. He’s calling an act of criticism and refusal to participate in spreading a message (which the story is clear, is all the gallery did. They did nothing but deny the use of their walls to the Five) an act of genocide.
Incidentally, people like Kaufman who conflate criticism of Israel with Antisemitism and who take any personal criticism of their expression of their faith as an attack on all jews everywhere are why I stopped going to schul. They aren’t anything resembling a majority, but they’re loud and believe their opinion defines any situation.
If I wanted that, I’d be a southern baptist.
Tara, I do have a consistent standard. If you showed me someone who said something like this:
And then argued to me that the speaker was unlikely to accept that any harsh criticism of the Palestinians was acceptable, I’d agree with you. This is not because I think “vilify and marginalize” and “harsh criticism” are always interchangeable in every possible use, but because in this particular use, said in that specific tone, it’s reasonable (in my experience) to infer that the speaker is not making subtle distinctions.
That’s not what I’m saying, nor what I believe. What I’m saying is that if you’re not willing to accept that someone can argue that Israel is an oppressor state without making an anti-Semitic argument, then you’re unwilling to accept that harsh criticism of Zionism is not inherently anti-Semitic. (That’s just one example, not a all-purpose litmus test).
It is of course true that someone could disagree that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians as oppression and still be willing to criticize Zionism.
As for where I “really” disagree with the Zionist 5, I disagree with them that what occurred with their book was censorship; and I disagree with them that what occurred to them with their book amounts to an wish for genocide of the Jews by the publisher.
I also disagree with a view I infer they hold, which is that I think they’d tend to classify virtually any harsh criticism of Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism. I readily admit I might be mistaken in my inference.
I have to say that I agree with Karpad (thanks, Karpad!), and I’m modifying my position in this argument to match Karpad’s.
Refusing to publish a book on the grounds that the book promotes Zionism, because one believes Zionism is “antithetical to the aims of the [publisher], which promotes ‘international understanding’ and forswears all forms of nationalism and religion,” is criticism. It’s not a detailed or academically argued criticism, but it is criticism nonetheless.
And for that, the Zionist 5 says the publisher wishes for the extinction of the Jews, and the act of not publishing a Zionist tract because one disagrees with Zionism is described as “vilification, marginalization, suppression, or outlawing” of Zionism.
Tara, Richard, do you feel that what the Zionist 5 has said about the gallery owner is just? Has he been treated fairly, in your view? Or has he been called an anti-semite and a genocide-wisher based solely on his desire not to publish a Zionist tract because he apparently disagrees with Zionism politically?
I think we would do well to split “criticism of Zionism” and “criticism of Israel” in this discussion. Israel is a state, Zionism is the belief that there should be a Jewish state in what is now Israel. And indeed, the phrase I hear more often is that criticism of Israel, not Zionism, is what’s mixed up (or not) with anti-Semitism.
I surely believe that Israel can (and must) be open to critique on a variety of grounds (which doesn’t negate my general position that such critiques need to be examined from a lens which recognizes the global subordination of Jews — but that’s a topic for another thread). But “vilify[ing], marginaliz[ing], suppress[ing] or outlaw[ing]” Zionism? Tougher deal. I do believe that the broad stroke critique of Zionism qua Zionism, at best, displays an indifference to the impact a world without a Jewish state would likely have on Jewish bodies — up to and including mass murder — and is thus prima facia anti-Semitic. Rolling dice with Jewish lives is not okay, and that’s the thing — nobody can guarantee to me that a world without Israel is a world that will be safe for Jews, while I have a lot of evidence indicating that one without Israel is one very dangerous for Jews. If one believes, as I do, that the existence of a Jewish state in Israel is crucial to the physical safety of Jews, and our liberation more generally, then the anti-Zionist position does strike strongly of anti-Semitism.
And indeed, I actually like the rejection of the “motive” defense, and you should too Amp, because you know as well as I do that one’s intention hardly matters if one is creating/perpetuating an unjust social order that is subordinating an oppressed group. If, in our hypothetical Israel-less world, Jews start dying because they don’t have any place to flee too when anti-Semitic strikes up again, it’s no excuse to say you wanted to see Israel go bye-bye because of a general commitment to anti-nationalism, instead of pure loathing of Jews. “I didn’t mean to hurt you” isn’t an excuse. Listen to our voices, treat us as equal members of your community, and maybe you wouldn’t have hurt us in the first place.
Ron, when publishers use contract law or copyright law to keep works out of print, how can you say that’s not something that involves the government?
Because the government is not the prime actor here. In actual censorship (e.g., the Pentagon Papers case), the government on it’s own initiative steps in and enjoins someone to prevent them from disseminating information, with the forces that the government can bring to bear, including things like force against your person (arrests, imprisionment, execution), book burning, firewalling off the entire Internet, destroying satellite dishes, etc. There is no issue of copyright or contract law. In fact, in extreme cases there’s no question of law at all. Whereas in the case of the refusal of a private party to disseminate information, the government will not do anything unless someone involved in the dispute brings it to court. It’s a private party that’s the prime actor.
It’s illegal for them to publish their own work; anything being illegal involves the government.
Only to the extent that the aggrieved parties care to involve them. They can choose not to involve the government at all (e.g., arbitration). In an actual case of censorship, the aggrieved party has no choice in the matter; the government is acting regardless of their desires.
I’m kind of particular about the use of the word “censorship”. I oppose expanding it’s meaning. I think it’s important to not conflate the actions of government with the actions of private parties. I think it’s important to underline that being affected by the one is involuntary, whereas the other is voluntary (nobody forced you to sign that contract – by definition, because if you can prove that in court the contract is invalid). If the government is unjustly exerting force on you, whether or not they are doing so according to the law, then you have a right to complain and appeal for sympathy. But if a private party is exerting force on you because you made a voluntary agreement with them and they are now holding you to it, you are responsible for that and have much less claim for relief.
A philosophical aside; when you sell the publication rights, can you still call it your work? I realize it’s a bit semantic; it’s common to call something that you created “your” work, but when you sell the publication rights you’ve sold an essential part of it to someone else; in a way, it’s partly “their” work now as well, at least while the contract is in force. I’m not throwing that part of this out for an extended debate, mind you – there’s no hard and fast definition of what the phrase “your work” means, after all, and I don’t pretend to give one. But it’s worth thinking about.
I support the State of Israel – both the fact that it exists, and it’s right to defend itself against the acts of savages. But that doesn’t mean that everything they’ve done to do so is right. It does not mean that criticizing Israel’s policies and its methods of carrying them out is anti-Semitic. Criticizing the Jewish State isn’t criticizing Judaism or the Jews as an ethnic group.
I think that last blockquote is dead wrong. OTOH, given the history of the 20th and 21st centuries (not to mention the 19th, the 18th, …) one can see where some Jews might be a tad paranoid.
Next time I hear someone deny that Zionists mix up criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism, I hope I remember that quote; according to these folks, criticizing Zionism for any reason at all isn’t just anti-Semitic, it’s wishing Genocide upon the Jews.
If you mean that to mean Zionists as a group, then you are presuming that these guys represent all Zionists. Is that fair?
Point well taken, Ron. I didn’t mean to say “Zionists as a group,” and I should have written “some Zionists” rather than just “Zionists.”
Ron beat me to it.
perhaps you should say “five Zionists,” rather than even “some;” without a qualifier, that seems overbroad.
After all, they’re the Zionist five, not the Zionist five percent. Presenting them as individual examples of what crazy people are capable of–and IMO that statement is a bit crazy–is one thing. Presenting them as examples of Zionism is a bit extreme.
David, do you feel that what the Zionist 5 has said about the gallery owner is just? Has he been treated fairly, in your view? Or has he been called an anti-semite and a genocide-wisher based solely on his desire not to publish a Zionist tract because he apparently disagrees with Zionism politically?
David writes:
In actual practice, the current-day Zionist movement is more about defending the political and policy decisions of Israel’s government, and defending the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel, than it is about advocating for the creation of a Jewish state in what is now Israel (a fight that was won decades ago).
It’s hard to pin down; it’s a little like saying “X is what Democrats stand for,” or “Y is what the union movement stands for.” Obviously, there’s a range of related but differing beliefs that could fall under the word “Zionist” nowadays. But I think your extremely narrow definition of “Zionism,” fails to encompass how the word is used in practice nowadays, including by self-identified Zionists.
If a “Zionist” is just someone who thinks Israel has a right to exist and be a haven for Jews, then I’m a Zionist. Yet few self-proclaimed Zionists would identify me as a Zionist.
What prominent and harsh critique of Israeli policies would you identify as not anti-Semitic?
Do you think it’s fair to say that this gallery owner has vilified, marginalized and suppressed Zionism?
Since I don’t think Israel should be eliminated, I’m not going to respond to the rest of your post, which is rebutting a position (we should want a world without Israel) which I don’t advocate.
I am fine with saying that motive isn’t what’s important in discussing anti-semitism. If that’s all you got out of the Zionist 5’s statement — if you don’t see that they said anything in any way more extreme than “anti-semitism isn’t just about motives” — then I think you’re being willfully blind.
Zionism in its current form should accurately be defined as defending the continued existence of a Jewish state. A Zionist might defend X Israeli action as necessary for its security (and thus existence), but I don’t think the term accurately should be extended to encompass any action Israel ever undertakes (and I don’t think that it is really being used that way — at least as universally as you portray it). But, given the real threats to Israel’s continued existence (it’s willful blindness on your part to say that’s a fight that was won and settled decades ago), I think that discussions of Israel have to occur with that lens as part of the discussion. Though Israel and Zionism are separate terms, they are interlinked (obviously) and it’s not a legitimate move to pretend that there aren’t powerful forces who see the end-game of their critique of Israel as the destruction of Israel.
The gallery owners cited their opposition to religion and nationalism in all forms as their reason for turning down the exhibit. Opposing religion in all forms would seem to include Judaism on face, and nationalism in all forms would include Israel as a Jewish state, so the gallery seems to be in opposition to even your own brand of Zionism. The statement of the Zionist 5 also seems to be operating from your definition — it is articulating the necessity of having a Jewish state in Israel, not the necessity of launching air strikes into Gaza. As I articulated above, I think the gallery’s position (opposing Zionism because it opposes nationalism generally) is at best indifferent to the serious risk of bodily harm it places on world Jewry, and thus I don’t feel too bad about them being called out on it.
I don’t think its anti-Semitic to say that Israel must accede to a two-state solution– those Israeli MKs (and claimed supporters of Israel) who want a perpetual, indefinite “greater Israel” occupation deserve critique. But in general, style matters as much as substance. A great many Israeli policies, from the barrier to any given incursion into the territories to the boundaries of an eventual pull out are theoretically open for criticism. But the framing of the criticism matters. When criticisms don’t operate with an awareness of the particularities of the situation or Jewish experience, that’s problematic even if the substance could have been presented in a defensible manner (think of varying criticisms of rap music, or the debate over the benefits of integrated schools). This is why my program so heavily stresses discursive equity for Jewish voices and experience over concrete “supporting this policy is anti-Semitic, supporting that policy is Judeophilic.” The point is to create the environment for a discussion in which all participants can fairly articulate their position and expect that their needs and interests will be given due consideration and accounting. Certainly, that environment isn’t being created in this case when the entire stance of the majority of Jews (who are Zionists in the “narrow” sense you define) is being rejected out of hand by the gallery.
Oy, I wish I had more time:
1. The Zionist 5 do not sound like people I would agree with on very much. Nonetheless, granting Amp’s point about their rhetoric, I still find the equation in the original post of “criticism” with “vilifying, etc.” to be problematic. If the Zionist 5’s rhetoric matters, then so does everyone else’s.
2. I found the description in the Sun article that Amp linked to of how the gallery owner backed away from publishing the catalogue and from showing some of the work–assuming it is accurate–problematic as well. If it is true that he backed away only, or primarily, because of the word Zionist/concept Zionism, that is a very big problem.
3. Amp wrote:
My own experience is very different. I have met more than a few people who call themselves Zionists–many of them Israelis–who are in fact very critical of Israel and who adamantly support the right of the Palestinians to their own state (and some even support a one-state solution. I think there is a big problem both within the Jewish community and outside of it in terms of who gets to define what Zionism is and whose interests are served by the definition of Zionism along the lines in which Amp characterizes that movement.
4. I don’t agree that refusing to publish a work under the circumstances we are talking about here is merely an act of criticism, especially when the decision is characterized as a business decision (see the Sun article Amp linked to).
5. A nit pick that is a little bit more than a nit pick: Myca wrote:
The PLO is an organization not a nationalist ideology. Zionism is an ideology not an organization. To outlaw, etc. an organization is not necessarily to wish for or contribute to the genocidal murder of the people that organization purports to represent; on the other hand, to outlaw, etc. a way of seeing the world that includes the liberation of a people is, by implication, to outlaw, etc. that liberation. When Israel refuses to acknowledge, for example, the historical narrative of the Palestinian, it engages in the latter.
STATEMENT
Zionism is the Civil Rights Movement of the Jewish People. It is the answered prayer to two thousand years of ceaseless persecution at the hands of unpredictable host nations and of religions that at times abandoned their own highest moral precepts in the pursuit of dubious political objectives at the expense of Jewish life and limb.
For an individual or institution to claim to respect and tolerate Jews and yet deny a Jew, any Jew, the right to proclaim Zionism as a personal spiritual, cutural and political raison d’etre, is like telling a Black person that you regard him as your equal and friend but please, do not mention the March on Birmingham; please, don’t talk about Martin Luther King; please, don’t bring up Rosa Parks to me.
Zionism is the March on Birmingham, the Martin Luther King, the Rosa Parks of our people, the Jewish People. It is our march on the death camp at Auschwitz; it is our fight for an equal place on the bus of human history.
And the State of Israel is our Promised Land of freedom and equality on earth.
How the term Zionism, and all that it so powerfully represents to our people after the Holocaust; how this term Zionism, this vision of redemption, this philosophy of empowerment, this bright candle held up to the night and which lead back home the displaced and tortured remnants, the dreamers and idealists, the Jews who came from all corners of the earth with a vision of self-determination and cultural, spiritual and political renewal; how this miracle of an idea was brought to fruition through the sacrifice and struggle of the brave Israeli people, is one of the great miracles of human history.
And how this same Zionism, distorted and vilified by one of the most sordid disinformation campaigns in history, became the bete noire of the present day, a refugee of a word, a pariah of an idea, is one of the most sordid instances in the long, cruel campaign to marginalize and, ultimately, to destroy the Jewish People.
Let us, then, be perfectly frank about one thing. To vilify, marginalize, suppress or outlaw Zionism politically, socially or culturally, for any reason whatever, is to wish no less then murderous extinction upon every Jewish man, woman and child in the world today. It is to refute our history entire, to deny us the memory of our long march out of bondage into equality and dignity. It is to assert ghettoization and ostracization, exile and massacre as the only fate befitting a Jew.
If ignorance of the law does not exempt one from the law, then equally, ignorance, pretended or real, of the unthinkable consequences to Jews of a world without Israel does not exempt one from the certain knowledge that no less then genocide awaits our people should the campaign against Zionism succeed.
We affirm our right –moral, spiritual, cultural and political — to proclaim our Zionism in any manner that we choose, without hinderence or proscription, and further, we condemn, forcefully and completely the stance of anti-Zionism for what so blatently it is: a human rights violation and euphemistic mask behind which lurks the age-old nightmare of anti-Semitism.
Signed,
Alan Kaufman
I think I get it…
Amp is “not a Zionist, but.”
or maybe he is “a Zionist, but not one of those paranoid, Arab-hating Zionists.”
It seems like you’re rejecting a very mainstream definition of Zionism (support for the existence of a Jewish state in Israel), which is the one the Zionist 5 also seem to be working from, and then saying that if people are anti your definition of Zionism, there is no antisemitism there, thus that must also be true of people who are anti the mainstream definition of Zionism, and if anyone denies that, they are probably paranoid race-baiters.
Whereas that position doesn’t really make any sense.
So is this Alan Kaufman the actual guy, or just someone using his name and posting some note of his from his website verbatim?
Because wow, epic fucking failure. Like “I can’t believe you passed 10th grade Civics” failure.
FIRST: Zionism is NOT the civic rights movement of the Jewish people. They aren’t analogous struggles. Zionism is a nationalist movement, analogous to the struggles in Ireland or the Balkans. In theory, Nationalist movements are about a right of self-determination of an ethnic group and do no harm, but there are other issues to be addressed there (which will be addressed another time, but are fairly obvious to anyone who has graduated high school.)
SECOND: Zionism, particularly radical Zionism, does substantial harm to the Jewish community. Like most nationalist movements, it establishes to the world at large that there is dual loyalty issues there. The central argument of Zionism is that Jews cannot be real Americans, or Canadians, or any other nation for that matter. That they are Jews, and that is their identity. There’s another set of folks that make that same argument verbatim, but they aren’t Zionists. The Civil Rights movement you so inaccurately compare yourself to considered national separatism an incredibly radical idea. Blacks wanted voting rights and legal protections IN AMERICA. The March on Washington wasn’t to declare an independent black nation to which all individuals descended from the African Diaspora were granted a Right of Return. You sir, are no Dr. King.
THIRD: Zionism was a product of the era, and has made no effort to adapt to changing circumstances. Zionism was founded as a concept in the 19th century, when the ONLY chance for self-determination was in a separate country. The West is largely secularized now. A Jew is just as capable of expressing faith and living by the 613 commandments in a democratic secular nation as in a Jewish one. If you argue that the laws of the land are not expressly Jewish, and therefore somehow incomplete, you’re a reactionary religious zealot, and I highly recommend you go suck a lemon, because MY Judaism, slack of enforcement of kashrut and Sabbath work prohibitions as it may be, is just as real and worthy of government protection as yours.
tl;dr: Shut the fuck up, you self-aggrandizing asshole. You aren’t engaged in anything resembling a noble struggle, you’re shitting on an Art Gallery to get publicity for your utterly mediocre art. You COULD just be a pompous jerk who tries to get used latrines installed as an art piece, or get a restraining order from some celebrity for lewd phonecalls, I don’t care. There are ways to get publicity for yourself that don’t involve claiming you speak for all Jewish People everywhere. and the telephone harrassment might actually be less sleazy.
Karpad: It is way too pat to say that just because America is a (nominally) secular state, Jews will have perfect freedom to exercise their religion. Because Jews are a small minority within these secular states (such as America), their practices will not be the norm, and hence even laws that aren’t specifically targeted at hindering Jewish religious practice can still end up burdening us. And precisely because they are facially neutral, they not only will pass muster under first amendment doctrine, but requests for accommodation will be seen as violations of the secular statehood and will be rejected. This has happened time and again in the United States. See, e.g., Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986) (Air Force regulations prohibiting wearing of a kippah are permissible); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961) (law requiring all merchants, including Orthodox Jewish merchants, to close on Sunday is permissible); Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Market, 366 U.S. 617 (1961) (state not required to give an exemption to Sunday closing laws for Orthodox Jews, even if it gives exemptions to other groups); Estate of Caldor v. Thorton, 472 U.S. 703 (1985) (allowing people to choose their day off on religious grounds not permissible under the Establishment Clause); Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994) (establishment of a new secular school district in an all-Jewish enclave of New York unconstitutional); Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats Inc. v. Rubin, 106 F. Supp. 2d 445 (E.D.N.Y. 2000) (laws prohibiting fraudulent sale of food products as “kosher” unconstitutional); Ran-Dav’s County Kosher Inc. v. State, 129 N.J. 141, 608 A.2d 1353 (1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 952 (1993) (same); Barghout v. Bureau of Kosher Meat and Food Control, 66 F.3d 1337 (4th Cir. 1995) (same). See generally David Schraub, When Separation Doesn’t Work: The Religion Clauses as an Anti-Subordination Principle, 5 Dartmouth L.J. 101 (forthcoming Spring 2007).
More generally, even putatively liberal states have and have had loads of anti-Semitism, often supported by the state apparatus (albeit usually channeled through nominally neutral means). The Dreyfuss Affair, for example, was in a state that pioneered the idea of secular neutrality. And of course, the Holocaust occurred in a state that was the crucible of enlightenment tolerance and, thirty years earlier, would have been considered one of the most Jewish-friendly countries in Europe.
So I don’t think liberal neutrality is necessarily sufficient for Jewish liberation. It is, of course, worth noting that a great many Black leaders did take a separatist stance, and even the more “mainstream” figures supported the existence and continuance of majority-Black institutions, such as historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In both cases, I think the general point is that no group should be forced to a minority everywhere. The national vision for Jewish liberation is founded on the (in my opinion solid) premise that we need a place where we determine our own horizons, where we are the norm and not the outsider/Other. In a world constituted around the idea of democratic states, Jews can only have control over their own destiny if they have a democratic state to call their own. It is only partially analogous to other national liberation struggles (Ireland/the Balkans), in part because Jews are more widely dispersed, in part because there is a strong historical prejudice that specifically directs that Jews must remain stateless. In any event, the fact of Judaic difference from other groups can’t be used as a warrant for continuing their marginalization (to quote Catherine MacKinnon, “[T]o require that one be the same as those who set the standard…simply means that…equality is conceptually designed never to be achieved. Those who most need equal treatment will be the least similar…to those whose situation sets the standard against which one’s entitlement to be equally treated is measured.”)
[Double-post deleted by author]
Some people walk around believing they are victims; such a belief populates the believer’s world with victimizers. For Himmelberger to have refused to publish a catalogue that would align him with a controversial viewpoint in no way means that he opposes such a viewpoint. Have we reached such a state where to desire to remain neutral constitues censorship? According to the Zionst 5, you must agree to promote Zionism, else you are an anti-semite.