tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586565064372847590.post3235415111602651923..comments2024-01-01T15:26:04.383-05:00Comments on Rootless Cosmopolitan: Yiddisher Than Thourokhlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15442447160759343139noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3586565064372847590.post-9952719329312700882012-01-15T16:01:07.979-05:002012-01-15T16:01:07.979-05:00Spot on, Rokhl. Your critique here is sharp and i...Spot on, Rokhl. Your critique here is sharp and insightful-- thank you for continuing the good fight! <br /><br />I've been progressively more and more disappointed with Tablet over the passed 2-3 years and I'd be curious to know if you (or anyone else out there) see things the way I do. It used to be a forum for all stripes of global Jewishness, both mainstream and "off the derekh" (if you will) of paradigmatic, hegemonic ways of being Jewish. Increasingly, however, I've noticed a shift. As they've added more content (and perhaps met with more sponsor gelt) they've largely reflected an Israel-centric, softly anti-religious, Adam Sandler-esque vision of American (and only American) Jewish life that I find, to quote Zvi Gitelman, just plain "thin." <br /><br />Symptomatic of this is not only empty Yiddish!Revival! pieces, but also a sad lack of nuance vis-a-vis politics (assuming that all Jews are, by fact of being Jewish, far-left liberal) and a general feeling that Jewish culture consists exclusively of skimming the New York Times desperately looking for Jewish names in the headlines, obituaries, wedding announcements, etc. Tablet is not alone in this approach to Jewishness, of course, but their decline is made all the more salient for me, as they used to be a place I looked toward for the other side of the coin, so to speak. Perhaps this is the fate of any media-space as gains popularity and moves toward the center, the gradual aging of anything and anyone as it becomes what it once criticized. What's frustrating is that Tablet still seems to be able to marshal the resources to occasionally (but increasingly more rarely) to publish some gems. <br /><br />In contexts such as the Tablet, New York Times,etc., Yiddish is degraded and marginalized, infantilized and ignored. Restoring its visibility and viability as a legitimate discourse in global Jewish life is of vital importance, but, I think, not for Yiddish's sake alone. The "battle for Yiddish," (if I may be so dramatic) is to my mind a fight against this "lowest common denominator" Jewishness writ large that is promoted everywhere, reinforced in synagogues, federations, birthright buses, the list goes on. No one argues that Israel and the Holocaust are of undeniable significance, but Jewish life (past, present and future!) is full of rich diversity, a pluralistic, multicultural, kaleidoscopic mix of Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, English Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic, Left, Right, Hasidic, Communist, Woody Allen, Franz Kafka, Roth, Babel, Rambam, et cetera, et cetera ad infinitum.<br /><br />bkitser, lomir zhe zingen, poshet un prost, fun ALTS vos iz heymish lib un tayer!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com