At the Passover Seder this year — who is now the Wicked Son?
Given the world in which we presently experience, here is the opinion of David Mamet (as outlined in his book and as summarized by wiki):
The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish self-hatred, and the Jews is a collection of essays by playwright David Mamet (a truly difficult read): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_Son
Excerpt 1: Mamet addresses the book “To the Jews…whose favorite Jew is Anne Frank … who bow the head reverently at a baptism and have never attended a bris – to you, who find your religion and race repulsive, your ignorance of your history a satisfaction, here is a book from your brother.” Mamet confronts his readers: “The world hates Jews. … The world hates you.”
Excerpt 2: In the Passover Seder, four different sons ask a question. The wicked son asks, “What does this ritual mean to you?”, in essence separating himself from the group by sarcastically and scornfully declaring that the ritual has no personal meaning for him. In a series of related essays, Mamet uses this concept of the wicked son as a symbol of the atheistic or agnostic self-hating Jew in Western society.
Be mindful if you choose to read this book further — it constitutes a very unsoothing and sobering appraisal.
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And on a different note: In the world of Journalism — what exactly is NPR?
Is NPR known for journalism, or is it a new shade of ‘Yellow’?
(When it comes to Israel, Yellow may very well be an addition to the color spectrum of Journalism):
What is yellow journalism in simple terms?:
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that does not report real news with facts. It uses shocking headlines that catch people’s attention to sell more newspapers.
link: https://twitter.com/thefp/status/1780218177168838711?s=12
Suspended: NPR editor Uri Berliner (link ->) was suspended after publishing an essay in The Free Press accusing the public broadcaster of left-wing bias; Berliner’s essay was published without the necessary approval from NPR.
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Is identifying Jews now defined and motivated, by political partisans?
Is it love or is it hate?
Switching now from our more regularly scheduled discussions of Jewish (religious) identity issues, here we pivot to what appears on the surface as a political identity issue, And yet, somewhat confusingly, it seems to appear as a racial, skin color, class, and ‘intersectional behavioral’ issue. Because we are oppressors — we have returned to being the outed, and the hunted.
It is interesting to see who is assisting.
It has come up in class and I thought perhaps it would be wise to understand ‘intersectional’ a little more clearly: ‘intersectional’: because Israel, Jews, and Zionists constitute an oppressor people (ethnically and religiously so) and an oppressor class, (i.e. as a socio-economic grouping), therefore all those who are downtrodden and ‘oppressed’ due to race, skin color, class, sexual and gender identity must now identify with oppressed peoples such as Palestinian people (or even with the oppressed Iranian regime, a regime ironically well known for their tolerance and acceptance of the Jewish people — only as a dhimmi people), or face the usual sanctions such as cancellation or worse, being publicly disregarded and labeled as racist, bigoted, or just simply called out as ‘hateful haters.’
Politico Magazine here highlights some of these issues facing constituencies within the Democratic Party, somewhat interestingly, a political party that the American Jewish Community has overwhelmingly identified with since the days of FDR.
Iran attack widens rift between activist left and Democratic moderates
The latest flashpoint in the Israel-Gaza war shows both sides calcifying their stances.
Politico looks at the divide(s) between the activist left and the more mainstream Democrats, noting that following Iran’s weekend strike on Israel, positions “are only hardening and further widening the rift between the activist base and moderates in the Democratic Party.”
Link: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/16/iran-israel-palestine-demcorats-rift-00152349
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Why are these times different from all other times?
