Doikayt and Decolonization

I closed out 2019 by fulfilling a longtime ambition: attending the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) conference as an invited member of a conference panel. 

Alllll the excited emojis.

I was the sole journalist in an otherwise all-star lineup of young academics. We came together to talk about the modern meaning(s) of the Bund. I joined David Slucki (Monash), Josh Meyers (Harvard), Jacob Labendz (Youngstown State), Caroline Luce (UCLA), and Mindl Cohen (Yiddish Book Center) for what turned out to be a truly fascinating and productive conversation. It was a pleasure to meet so many great folks whom I had previously only known virtually. 

I read Mindl's doctoral thesis on doikayt in preparation for our discussion and I highly recommend it if you want to go deeper into the pre-war Bundist zeitgeist. Of course I've read David Slucki's The International Labor Bund After 1945: Toward a Global History. And both Josh and Caroline have books coming out soon about very different moments in Bund history. I have a feeling they will be 'must reads' on the subject and I'm eagerly awaiting both of them. 

As I said during our panel, I was there as a humble polemicist among serious scholars. My paper, on doikayt (hereness) and decolonization, was expanded and translated into Hebrew for the latest issue of Haaretz's Judaism supplement magazine. It was then published in English as 'Why Modern Anti-Zionists Love the Bund.' If my goal were to piss off every possible corner of the Jewish Left I'd be making solid progress on that one. I guess you have to take your wins where you find them.



As a bonus to those of you who read to the bottom, here's the video from Itzik Gottesman's recent YIVO talk about Yiddish Christmas. Enjoy!

Wishing You a Nonsense Free Springtime Festival - My Latest for Haaretz

Last week slimy Brexit cheerleader and nasty little UKIP troll Nigel Farage trolled us once again, this time claiming (incorrectly) that Cadbury had removed 'Easter' from its Egg Hunt promotion. If it wasn't bad enough stirring up outrage with his fabrications (remind you of someone?) Farage had to drag us into it, tweeting "...we must defend our Judeo-Christian culture and that means Easter."

What the fuck you mean by 'our' culture you racist little toad?

Ugh.

Turns out Farage has been selling this 'Judeo-Christian culture' bullshit for a while. In 2014, for example, he was on TV calling for 'extreme measures' to stop homegrown non-white terrorists. Makes you wonder what kind of 'extreme' solution Farage had for homegrown white terrorists like the killer of Jo Cox, Thomas Meir... Oh wait, he has none.

Anyway... plenty of Jews took umbrage at Farage's fantasy about Judeo-Christian culture, especially British culture. I mean, where does herding all your Jews into a tower and lighting it on fire fit into this picture?

Genug shoyn with this Judeo-Christian nonsense. My latest at Haaretz is about the uses and abuses of this imagined affinity between Jews and Christians. Did you know a pastor who 'laid hands' on the President will be hosting a Messianic seder? Did you know the President's pastor (prosperity preacher, Paula White) claims Passover as part of her "spiritual heritage"? These pastors lurve them some Passover, but why isn't the love returned by Jews?

For Jews in Eastern Europe, rather than being seen as a “supernatural, miraculous season” (as Paula White fondly describes the time of Passover) Easter was a time of dread. Violence against Jews often peaked around religious holidays. The infamous Kishinev pogrom of 1903 started on Easter Sunday amid ‘fake news’ of the day that two Christian children had been murdered to provide blood for Jewish matzah. In Yiddish, Pentecost, the seventh week after Easter, was known as ‘di grine khoge’, the (non-Jewish) holiday of terror.  

Pastor White can imagine herself into the Exodus narrative, celebrate as many seders as she wants, and for all I know, write new, pro-Trump (kholile) verses of Chad Gadya. She can do this because, not to put too fine a point on it, Passover has never been a symbol of mortal terror for her or her followers.

You can read more here:






(p.s. In these days of shrinking independent media many news sites, like Haaretz, put their content behind paywalls. I hope you'll think about supporting Haaretz so it can keep publishing terrific journalism and the occasional op-ed by yours truly)

The Spirit of Cable Street and the Dread of BREXIT

At this point you probably never want to hear the year's most awful portmanteau ever again: BREXIT. It's ugly, it smells like xenophobia, and the success of the campaign to leave the EU (endangering migrants and refugees in the process) can't help but give one a slight shudder as it pertains to the electoral chances of a certain orange demagogue.

BUT! Before you close the tab on BREXIT, please give a read to my latest op-ed at Haaretz,  'They Shall (Not) Pass': Brexit Vote Shows How Cracks in Anti-racist Coalitions Could Win Trump the White House

I look at the Battle of Cable Street (1936) and what it might have to say at this moment of isolationism and racial scapegoating. Art, history, solidarity: these are my comforts in unsettled times.  



(A note on paywalls and such: The future of journalism is uncertain to say the least. I'm proud to be contributing to Haaretz, one of the best internationally oriented papers out there. As I'm sure you've noticed, Haaretz keeps most of its content behind a paywall, because producing quality journalism is freaking expensive and only getting expensiver. You should get a subscription to Haaretz. Seriously. HOWEVER, if you cannot afford a subscription, and you want to read what I've written, go to a social media link to the article, through Twitter or Facebook, and click through there. That will take you to the full article. And if you enjoy what you read, please think about subscribing.)

The Selfie That Broke the Social Justice Internet - My Op-Ed for Haaretz

This week I published my first op-ed for Haaretz (English language edition.) It's on the rise (and fall) of Belgian viral selfie phenom Zakia Belkhiri. What happens when anti-racist/anti-Islamophobia activists don't see any problem with the most vile kind of anti-Semitism?

Zakia Belkhiri Took a Selfie of anti-Semitism on the Left

Belkhiri’s stumble wasn’t an exception in the contemporary social justice narrative, it was another example of how the global Left systematically fails to include the Jewish struggle for self-determination, both cultural and political, within its framework of national and personal liberations.
(read the rest here)