Review of Defamation (2009) by Courtney S — 08 Jun 2010

Thought-provoking indeed. Basically, Yoav Shamir, who has a pleasant, almost sing-songy way of speaking English, approached the topic of anti-Semitism in this day in age as being an integral part of a Jewish identity, especially in Israel, as a force of nature, as a constant buzz - starting with the fact that he had never actually experienced it himself! One thing I found really interesting to see played out was when the Israeli "kids" (high school kids) went to Poland to visit Holocaust sites, memorials and museums and one in particular was so convinced that Poles would be anti-Semitic that a question about where she was from (which she actually couldn't understand) got embellished by her and her friend to the point that attributed to this man was calling bitches and donkeys because they were from Israel.

While I could accept the everyone-is-an-anti-Semite argument from a Holocaust survivor, it seems demented coming from such young people. Just like Norm Finkelstein compared his upbringing where everything was compared to Auschwitz, everyone calls everyone else a Nazi in Israel.

A fascinating phenomenon. I was very impressed with how he let people speak for themselves without shying away from asking certain questions - of the left critics and the objects of their criticism. Even when some Black residents of a "mixed" Black and Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn slipped into anti-Semitic stereotypes, I felt that the whole problem there was segregation and a lack of understanding - there seemed to be no malice, just bewilderment and I am inclined to believe that clashes between Jews and Blacks do not happen all that often and agree with that one rabbi that it's absurd to take any conflict that involves a Jew and call it anti-Semitism.

Uri Avnery said you'd have to use a microscope to find anti-Semitism in the U.S., where Jews have never had it so good. Norm Finkelstein pointed out that when there is so much hunger, starvation, humiliation, war, death, destruction - when all this exists, it is offensive to go on the hunt to find anti-Semitism as if it is more than usually ignorance, especially in the US - but religious Jews in Moscow seemed to offended at the idea brought from Israel by Shamir that people are so anti-Semitic in Russia - one interesting idea was that secular Jews cling to anti-Semitism and see it as a part of their identity, whereas religious Jews aren't all that bothered by it, they're too busy practicing Judaism.

The one tour guide in Poland said some interesting things about Israeli culture emphasizing death so much, living in that feeling so much that they can't be a normal people. Two "kids" spoke about having such a high threshold for suffering (comparing everything to the Holocaust, the most incomprehensibly cruel event in modern history) and that when they see Arab homes demolished on TV it seems like nothing compared to gas chambers, etc.

Really interesting insights. In the end, it only benefits the State of Israel for their young people to be imbued with a sense that the entire world is populated by anti-Semites, to routinely bathe in the blood of the Holocaust - it doesn't benefit Israelis to define themselves as victims.

It must be crippling for some and there are plenty of cultural-political criticisms that say it has a culturally deadening effect on Israeli society. It's tragic that people so earnestly believe that everyone is out to get them; the fear is as real as a white woman thinking any Black man she meets on the street at night will rape her, but it's every bit as paranoid and unreasonable.

One tenet of Zionism is that anti-Semitism will always exist and that Jews can never assimilate, which like the disturbing idea about patriarchy that men have always and will (presumably) always oppress women has no hope, no future in it.

A number of the people in the film, many religious Jews and Israelis, expresses this sentiment in merely the title of his book, The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From its Ashes. That it is detrimental to Israelis to see Nazis everywhere and a Holocaust always on the way - it can keep people in Israel (not those thousands of migrants moving to Germany, Poland and elsewhere), but it has to be harmful.