MetaFilter posts tagged with Jews

What's a Coastie?

escabeche — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:41:17 -0800

What's a Coastie? Two University of Wisconsin undergrads record and post to YouTube an ode to "Coasties," out-of-state students who live in expensive off-campus apartments, wear Spandex tights with Uggs, spend their parents' money on designer handbags and Starbucks, and -- oh yeah, like 15% of their classmates but only 1 in 200 Wisconsin natives, are Jews. Controversy ensues.

"Arbeit Macht Frei" Sign Stolen

zarq — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:14:21 -0800

Poland has declared a state of emergency, after the infamous bronze sign reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" at former Konzentrationslager (concentration camp) Ausch witz was stolen yesterday. In Brussels, European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, appealed to the thieves to return the sign: "Give it back out of respect for the suffering of over a million victims, murdered in this Nazi camp, the biggest cemetery of humankind," Buzek said.
According to the Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz Facebook page, "the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum with approval of Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski has promised a reward of 100,000 zlotys (around $34,000)" for information about the theft leading to the sign's safe return. The Jerusalem Post reports that the Museum has replaced the original with a temporary duplicate.

The Diaspora in Big Sky Country

zarq — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:51:09 -0800

In Montana, a rabbi is an unusual sight. So when a Hasidic one walked into the State Capitol last December, with his long beard, black hat and long black coat, a police officer grabbed his bomb-sniffing German shepherd and went to ask the exotic visitor a few questions. Interview from The Jewish Press with Rabbi Bruk: A Kosher Cowboy in Montana. More. A bissel more information about Montana's Jews from the Forward.

Lt. Brad Pitt and his Howling Commandos

Artw — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:04:44 -0800

Jack Kirby's Inglorious Basterds

Is this survey OK by you?

escabeche — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:12:22 -0800

The Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity reports on the results of an online survey of 25,179 American Jews and 4,874 American Gentiles. Non-Jews say "klutz" but not "schmutz." The more Orthodox you are, the more likely you are to say "Good Shabbos" instead of "Shabbat Shalom." And so much more you'll plotz.

The Magician from Riga

Joe Beese — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:11:05 -0800

To play for a draw, at any rate with White, is to some degree a crime against chess. A Latvian Jew with ectrodactyly and lifelong kidney ailments, Mikhail Tal is considered one of the most audacious attacking players in the game's history. For a quarter century, he held the record of being the youngest man to win the World Championship. And his streak of 95 consecutive games without a loss is unmatched to this day. Tal first came to international attention at age 19 with this jaw-dropping (Google cache) performance in his first USSR Championship - which he would win the following year. This post is dedicated to one of Tal's legions of admirers - Father Beese, who would have been 75 today.

Der ewige Jude

Joe Beese — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:33:04 -0800

The day after Kristallnacht, Hitler said: "It was necessary not to make propaganda for violence as such, but to explain certain matters of foreign policy to the German people in such a way, that the inner voice of the people all by itself gradually would call for violence." Towards that end, Goebbels commissioned and closely supervised the production of a propaganda documentary titled Der ewige Jude - "The Eternal Jew". Few if any of the inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto who appear in its footage survived the war. Though it was exhibited throughout Germany and occupied Europe, popular audiences avoided the film's gruesome images of swarming rats and animal slaughter - preferring instead the anti-Semitic melodrama Jud Süß. In 1958, the film was still considered so dangerous that it required the intervention of the Customs Department to permit Amos Vogel to show it at his Cinema 16. Today, the film can be seen at the Internet Archive here. (previously)

The city that sits alone, with a wall in its heart

Joe in Australia — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:23:16 -0800

Mountain air, clear as wine
And the scent of pines
Brought by the twilight breeze
With the sound of bells

Shortly before the Six Day War of 1967 an amateur singer performed [YT] an elegy for the then-divided city of Jerusalem "locked in a dream ... with a wall in its heart". Yerushalayim Shel Zahav [YT], Jerusalem of Gold, became Israel's best-loved song. It was sung by the first Jews to re-enter Jerusalem after the Jordanian occupation and its author added a new stanza commemorating the fact that Jews had "returned to the wells, the market and the squares." The melody is based on a Basque lullaby [YT] sung here by Pello Joxepe.

The benches have been warned

kosem — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:59:48 -0800

At least one of these things is true, and possibly both: (a) This was the most tense game of baseball ever played; or (b) relations between Jews and the Klan have deteriorated dramatically since 1926. Bill Francis, a research librarian at the Baseball Hall of Fame, unearths a tantalizing newspaper clipping. No update as to how a cat named Flaherty ended up on the "Hebrew All-Star Nines" or, unfortunately, as to the result.

Lebron sinks one as the shas clock runs down!

ericbop — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:17:46 -0800

My April 1st spidey sense was tingling like crazy, but I guess it's true if it was in Time Magazine, that bastion of serious journalism, where Time 100 nominee LeBron James nominated Ohio businessman Jay Schottenstein for the next Time 100 because he, "supported the translation and elucidation of the Talmud Bavli into English, Hebrew and French." Now if only Jews could play basketball...

"Sid Luckman was great. He was probably the greatest Jewish football player ever."

jonp72 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:55:07 -0800

Obsessed with Jews is a hilariously delightful documentary short about Jewish memorabilia collector, Neil Keller. Keller speaks effusively about Jews in basketball ("Ossie Schechtman, great story. Ossie Schechtman scored the first basket in NBA history.") and Jews in hockey ("The first Jew in hockey was Samuel Rothschild."), although contrary to the Chanukah Song, Keller provides a letter where Rod Carew explains he's not Jewish. The documentary is by Jeff Krulik, that mensch responsible for Heavy Metal Parking Lot. For more Jeff Krulik documentary shorts and a great article on Krulik's days in cable access TV, check the multimedia article here. (Click through the pages. It's worth it!)

Jewish Jokers.

gman — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:02:01 -0800

Old Jews telling jokes.

The Queen of Beatles Spouses?

Xurando — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:23:33 -0800

The Oriental Nightfish. A Chanukah/Christmas gift of sorts. "Listening to Linda proceed tunelessly through "Endless Days" (she "sings" the "song" the way that Ken Lay "protected employees" or Ryan Leaf "quarterbacked") is an experience to be treasured, if by treasured you mean buried in a chest by pirates."

"There are no more Jews in Portugal"

orthogonality — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:24:09 -0800

What is a Spaniard?: Forcibly Crossing the Cross, the Crescent, and the Star

"The conversions came at the end of one of the most successful Jewish periods in human history... Their success led them to call their land Sepharad, a name from the book of Obadiah that implied that Spanish Jews were the successors to the Jews of Israel. This world ended in 1391."

"At the appointed time, those children who were not presented voluntarily were seized by the officials and forced to the font.... In many cases, parents smothered their offspring in their farewell embrace. In others, they threw them into wells in order to save them from the disgrace of apostasy, and then killed themselves. Sometimes, even old men were dragged to the churches and forcibly baptized by over-zealous fanatics,... In all other cases, the unwilling neophytes, some mere babies, were distributed throughout the country, as far as possible from home, to be brought up in Christian surroundings."

The first link, above, details a recent genetic study, the second begins in 1391 in Spain, the third jumps forward to 1407 in Portugal. The remaining links, below, attempt to provide context. It's difficult to try to adequately cover over two centuries of the history of the forced conversions and "ethnic cleansing", in two (or more) nation states, of two different minority religions. I've omitted much: the earlier Muslim history of Iberia; motivations for the conversions and expulsions; King Ferdinand's purported Jewish ancestry; the forcible conversions of Jews and native populations in the New World; the Spanish Inquisition as a tool to enforce "sincere" conversions; the use of forced adoption to literally steal a group's future, similarly used in Argentina's Dirty War and in Franco's Spain; later Spanish relations with North African Moors; and, except in the first link, 500 years of the aftermath of the ethnic and religious cleansing in the 14th and 15th centuries. My original intent was just to link the first article, on the genetics of Spain. In an effort to avoid editorializing, I've use block quotes to link to (long) texts giving the basic background of the forced conversions, and later, expulsions, of Jews and Muslims from Spain. The links below follow more or less chronologically, first the forced conversions, then the expulsions, of the Jews and then then Moors. The "New Christians":

"New Christians" is a term applied specifically to three groups of Jewish converts to Christianity and their descendants in the Iberian Peninsula. The first group converted in the wake of the massacres in Spain in 1391 and the proselytizing fervor of the subsequent decades. The second, also in Spain, were baptized following the decree of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 expelling all Jews who refused to accept Christianity. The third group, in Portugal, was converted by force and royal fiat in 1497. Like the word Conversos, but unlike Marranos, the term New Christian carried no intrinsic pejorative connotation, but with the increasing power of the Inquisition and the growth of the concept of "limpieza de sangre," cleansing the blood, the name signaled the disabilities inevitably heaped on those who bore it.

Vicente Ferrer:

... the Dominican friar Vicente Ferrer... traveled from one end of Castile to the other, and everywhere zealously urged the Jews to embrace Christianity, appearing with a cross in one hand and the Torah in the other. His impassioned sermons won him great influence, and he accomplished his ends in Murcia, Lorca, Ocaña, Illescas, Valladolid, Tordesillas, Salamanca, and Zamora. He spent the month of July, 1411, in Toledo; he invaded the large synagogue, which he transformed into the Church of Santa Maria la Blanca, and he is said to have baptized more than 4,000 Jews in that city.... At Ferrer's request a law consisting of twenty-four clauses, which had been drawn up by Paul de Burgos*, was issued (Jan., 1412) in the name of the child-king John II. The only object of this law was to reduce the Jews to poverty and to further humiliate them. They were ordered to live by themselves, in enclosed Juderias, and they were to repair, within eight days after the publication of the order, to the quarters assigned them under penalty of loss of property. They were prohibited from practising medicine, surgery, or chemistry, and from dealing in bread, wine, flour, meat, etc. They might not engage in handicrafts or trades of any kind, nor might they fill public offices, or act as money-brokers or agents.... These laws, which were rigidly enforced, any violation of them being punished with a fine of from 300 to 2,000 maravedis and flagellation, were calculated to compel the Jews to embrace Christianity.... ...Ferrer's fanatic zeal succeeded also in Aragon in leading many Jews to pretendedconversion, especially in Saragossa, Daroco, and Calatayud. Besides the places mentioned, he made proselytes in Albacete, Astorga, Avila, Benevent, Burgos, Leon, Mayorga, Majorca, Palencia, Paredes, Toro, Segovia, etc. The total number of Jews converted by him in Spain was, according to Mariana, 35,000; according to Zacuto ("Yuḥasin," p. 225), more than 200,000.... ...One of Vicente Ferrer's most zealous assistants in the work of conversion was Joshua ibn Vives Lorqui, or Geronimo de Santa Fé, who aimed at nothing less than baptisms en masse....

*Paul of Burgos, mentioned above, first from the Catholic Encyclopedia: ...He was the most wealthy and influential Jew of Burgos, a scholar of the first rank in Talmudic and rabbinical literature, and a Rabbi of the Jewish community. The irresistible logic of the Summa of St. Thomas led him to the Faith of Christ.... Then a different view, from the Jewish Encyclopedia: "...Paul, who even after he had been baptized continued to correspond with several Jews, including Joseph Orabuena, chief rabbi of Navarre, and Joshua ibn Vives, became a bitter enemy of Judaism, and tried his best, frequently with success, to convert his former coreligionists...." The Expulsion of the Spanish Jews: "The King gave them three months' time in which to leave...."

The Jews' expulsion had been the pet project of the Spanish Inquisition, headed by Father Tomas de Torquemada. Torquemada believed that as long as the Jews remained in Spain, they would influence the tens of thousands of recent Jewish converts to Christianity to continue practicing Judaism.... With their most important project, the country's unification, accomplished, the king and queen concluded that the Jews were expendable. On March 30, they issued the expulsion decree, the order to take effect in precisely four months... Throughout those frantic months, Dominican priests actively encouraged Jews to convert to Christianity and thereby gain salvation both in this world and the next.

The conversion and expulsion of the Spanish Muslims:

...Shortly after the start of the sixteenth century, however, the fortunes of Peninsular Muslims in general began to change. Pressured by the Toledan Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros to take measures to bring the Muslims of Granada into the Christian faith, and aware that alleged Christian abuses had provoked an uprising in the Alpujarras, King Fernando and Queen Isabel issued an order in 1502 requiring all Muslims in Castile and Leon to convert to Christianity or leave at once. The same law would reach Navarre in 1515 and Aragon in 1525. The royal order was widely enforced (executed in large part by mass baptisms and coercive tactics), and by the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the official Muslim population of Spain had been reduced from nearly half a million to nearly zero....

"Yesterday they were kings in their own homes":

It is ironic that those same Old Testament passages which have been used to support the theory that Palestine is the Jewish promised land were not only cited by apologists for a policy of mass expulsion for the Moriscos but were cited by anti-Jewish theologians in advocating the need for statutes of purity of blood.

Everything with a Schmear

digaman — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:52:07 -0800

The perfect Sunday nosh: A short history of the bagel. In an age when allegedly edible breadstuffs that my grandmother would have barely recognized have become ubiquitous, did you know that even the Pharaohs had a yen for the iconic Jewish comfort food that is as much a symbol of New York City as baguettes are to Paris? Bagels turn out to be surprisingly easy to make at home, too, though they won't be the same without a schmear and some nice Nova. (Previously on Ask.) Extra credit: the history of everything.

The last ones leave us now.

allkindsoftime — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:19:50 -0800

Fewer than 100 survived Treblinka. I am the last one.

The Great Schlep

tristeza — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:34:58 -0800

The Great Schlep. Sarah Silverman explains why you should get your fat Jewish ass on a plane to Florida to convince your grandparents to vote for Obama.

The Lost City of The Khazars

Yakuman — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:07:36 -0800

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people, of which many apparently converted to Judaism. Some believe they are the ancestors of many East European Jews. The Khazars were the subject of Arthur Koestler's controversial 1972 book, The Thirteenth Tribe, as well as anti-Semitic lore. Now a Russian archaeologist says he found a gold-mine of evidence about this once-great nation. No Jewish artifacts yet, however.

What's nu?

Asparagirl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:21:42 -0800

A linguist and a sociologist at Hebrew Union College have teamed up to track the inroads made into American English by words and idioms from traditionally Jewish languages, including Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), and Hebrew. They've created an online survey and are looking for people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds to answer a few questions about their word choices, phrasing, and pronunciation. They're also trying to determine whether certain linguistic quirks usually attributed to Yiddish's influence are actually carried over from Jewish ancestors' speech patterns and accents, or whether they're merely an artifact from growing up in or near New York City. [via]

Here he stands. He could not do otherwise. God help him.

orthogonality — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:54:42 -0800

"...aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true Jew... What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming.... First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians.... Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.... Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.... Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb." -- From On the Jews and Their Lies, authored by the man voted by his countrymen the second greatest German of all time, the theologian whose break with Rome began the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther. Other selected quotes from Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies include:

"No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."
"...but then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!", and
Over and above that we let them get rich on our sweat and blood, while we remain poor and they such the marrow from our bones.

"At times, [Martin] Luther seems as if he is all but calling for a holocaust: 'We are at fault in not slaying them.'" "At his trial in Nuremberg after the Second World War, Julius Streicher, the notorious Nazi propagandist, editor of the scurrilous antisemitic weekly, Der Stürmer, argued that if he should be standing there arraigned on such charges, so should Martin Luther." In fact, there are perhaps "two periods [of Luther's life that] have to be distinguished. During the earlier, which lasted until 1537 or shortly before, he is full of compassion for [the Jews'] misery and enthusiastic for their conversion to Christianity; in the later, toward the end of his life, he denounces them in unmeasured terms...." But some Christians [pdf] argue that Martin Luther's anti-Semitism wasn't like Nazi anti-Semitism. Instead, the Nazis' "appeal to Luther was a post-facto justification of their anti-Semitism and not the impetus of it." After all, Luther also wrote "Our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks — the crude asses’ heads — have hitherto so treated the Jews that anyone who wished to be a good Christian would almost have had to become a Jew. If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian. Therefore, I would request and advise that one deal gently with them [the Jews] and instruct them from Scripture;" Other Christian commentators, attempting to put Luther into a "Medieval context", also find Luther an anti-Semite but not "a prototypical modern antisemite". It should be noted that, beginning with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod in 1983, the various branches of the modern Lutheran Church have renounced and rejected Martin Luther's anti-Semitism. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's 1994 Declaration has yielded to a more passive voiced current apologia that seems to see anti-Semitism as a disease that takes its sufferers unaware: "Often in the past our interactions with Jews have been marred by misunderstanding, prejudice, and sometimes overt hostility, from which even the great reformer Martin Luther himself was not immune. But further into the ELCA's current document, Luther is condemned more strongly and linked to the Holocaust, though with the qualification that

ultimately the Nazis surpassed anything that Luther had recommended with their systematic program to physically annihilate the Jews. Luther had instructed pastors to advise their parishioners that although they should beware of Jews and avoid contact with them, “they should not curse them nor harm their persons.”

The German Lutheran Church (perhaps inevitably, given that in Germany Luther's prescription for the Jews were carried out, or as ELCA says, more than carried out), takes a somewhat stronger stance: "It is imperative for the Lutheran Church, which knows itself to be indebted to the work and tradition of Martin Luther, to take seriously also his anti-Jewish utterances, to acknowledge their theological function, and to reflect on their consequences.... Both sayings of Martin Luther and specific expressions of Lutheran theology have had anti-Jewish consequences."

L’shloshet yamin: “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice”

orthogonality — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:27:44 -0800

Gabriel’s Revelation: “This should shake our basic view of Christianity... His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come... This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning.”

Birthright Israel

TheOnlyCoolTim — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:10:10 -0800

Birthright Israel , funded by the Israeli government and Jewish philanthropists, provides free all-inclusive 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. The program's goal is to promote Israel along with general Jewish unity and engagement. The blog Jewlicious has a category about these trips. (Scroll down past many promotional entries for the interesting stuff.) Some question its efficacy and results, while some Jews subvert the program. The trips end with a "Mega Rally" featuring entertainment, giant inflatable Stars of David, and speeches by dignitaries including PM Ehud Olmert. Here is video coverage (FLV) of the most recent rally. There is also a satirical Something Awful report.

Meet the Nazi Cowboy

huskerdont — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:18:50 -0800

Billy Jenkins was "The Nazi Cowboy." One of the most popular German western stars of the 1930s, Jenkins (real name Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal) was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party. Pre-war Germany was crazy for cowboys, with Jenkins starring in pulp fiction books with titles like "Texasfieber" and "Aufruhr in Laredo" that were influenced by the works of Karl May. The only problem? Under Nazi Germany's racial laws, Jenkins was considered half-Jewish.

The Wall

ludwig_van — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:43:55 -0800

Israel vs. Palestine: Against the Wall is a six-part series on VBS.tv about the separation wall which divides Israel from the West Bank. Previously on Metafilter. Some more background on the Second Intifada.

"Unclean"

stammer — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:31:37 -0800

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel says in its annual report that Israel has reached "new heights of racism". Embedded WMV video, article, and, typically for Ha'aretz, some very interesting reader comments. Another report, the Israeli Democracy Institute's 2007 Democracy Index (pdf), reveals the Jewish State to be sharply divided. A majority of Israelis believe that relations are "not good" between rich and poor, between Jews and Arabs, between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, between "new immigrants" and "old timers", and between secular and religious Jews. 51% of Israeli Arabs think that Jews are racist; 55% of Israeli Jews think that Arabs "will not reach the cultural standards of Jews". Only 59% of citizens consider themselves to be "part of Israel", compared to 79% in 2003.