A Lovely Morning for Anti-Semitism

[RBS]

This morning, across the street from the Jewish Community Center, there were three boneheads protesting. They actually flew all the way in from Topeka to spew their vitriol!

Here's a picture I took a picture of them.

One guy yelling at them: "Hey, you ever been sexually active?!? You ever been touched by a man?"

Or another guy, "Jesus was Jewish!"

My personal favorite... Some guy who worked for the Center saying, "Hating Jews and gays, I can understand. But Walter Cronkite? Come on!"

It was really sort of strange. What a waste of time. And these three women loved the attention!

[clinthopson]

They are just exercising their First Amendment Rights.

As if they had a clue what that meant.

[Pete C]

You could spend a lifetime shooting photos of jerks. What's your point?

[claude]

Were these guys possibly trying to sell a clarinet mouthpiece on eBay?

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by Pete C

You could spend a lifetime shooting photos of jerks. What's your point?

What's so bad about jerks?

[Al in NYC]

Aren't these the same bozos who show up at soldiers' funerals?

[groover]

Jew-hating never takes a holiday, but this might explain the Cronkite-hatred.

Cronkite contrasted his support for accountable global government with the opposition to it by politically active Christian fundamentalists in the United States:^[57]

"Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience.They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me… I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."^[58]

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Sergio Zamora

What's so bad about jerks?

You get a pass

[MRS]

Originally Posted by Al in NYC

Aren't these the same bozos who show up at soldiers' funerals?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps

[RBS]

Originally Posted by Al in NYC

Aren't these the same bozos who show up at soldiers' funerals?

Yes, that's them. What was ironic was how little an impact they really had with all of their yelling.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by RBS

What was ironic was how little an impact they really had with all of their yelling.

Ah, irony!

[RBS]

Ah.

[Pete C]

This won't help:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/...uption_arrests

[jesus marion joseph]

I hate to admit it, but I was born in Topeka. My father was at Forbes AFB at the time. I believe the base has been shut down for a long time, but I hear Topeka is still there.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Pete C

This won't help:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/...uption_arrests

No, though it seems the only Jews involved were the Syrian rabbis. The mayors and other government folks involved don't have Jewish surnames.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by groover

No, though it seems the only Jews involved were the Syrian rabbis.

Identifiable by their fake designer handbags.

[Pete C]

The AP article refers to a school that educates the children of Sephardic Jews. If they're Syrian or otherwise Middle Eastern or North African, they're Mizrahi, not Sephardim, FWIW--a fact I only learned in the past year.

[RBS]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

I hate to admit it, but I was born in Topeka. My father was at Forbes AFB at the time. I believe the base has been shut down for a long time, but I hear Topeka is still there.

Being born in Topeka isn't a bad thing.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Pete C

The AP article refers to a school that educates the children of Sephardic Jews. If they're Syrian or otherwise Middle Eastern or North African, they're Mizrahi, not Sephardim, FWIW--a fact I only learned in the past year.

I read this on CNN:

According to Newark's The Star-Ledger, the rabbis taken into custody are from the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal on New Jersey's northern shore and in Brooklyn, New York.

The arrests resulted from an FBI and Internal Revenue Service probe "that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the Syrian enclaves in New York and New Jersey," the newspaper said on its Web site.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by Pete C

The AP article refers to a school that educates the children of Sephardic Jews. If they're Syrian or otherwise Middle Eastern or North African, they're Mizrahi, not Sephardim, FWIW--a fact I only learned in the past year.

My (very uninformed) understanding is that in modern casual parlance they are relatively interchangeable terms as there is much more cultural and historical overlap than with the Ashkenazi.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Sergio Zamora

My (very uninformed) understanding is that in modern casual parlance they are relatively interchangeable terms as there is much more cultural and historical overlap than with the Ashkenazi.

Of course you're correct, but sticklers beg to differ. Pleeze let me differ!

[GoodSpeak]

It is because of incidents like these that I continue to teach books like Night and the Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice.

My small effort to combat anti-Semitism.


This coming school year two more teachers will be doing the same book and play.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

It is because of incidents like these that I continue to teach books like Night and the Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice.

My small effort to combat anti-Semitism.


This coming school year two more teachers will be doing the same book and play.

Do you deal with the fact that Shylock is not an unambiguously sympathetic character and that Shakespeare's audiences probably would have considered him a total scoundrel?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Pete C

Do you deal with the fact that Shylock is not an unambiguously sympathetic character and that Shakespeare's audiences probably would have considered him a total scoundrel?

What do you mean would have?

[baksheesh]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

What do you mean would have?

Snrf! Snrf!
The syntax police strike! Nah, Nah, then Sir, whort's all this then?

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Pete C

Do you deal with the fact that Shylock is not an unambiguously sympathetic character and that Shakespeare's audiences probably would have considered him a total scoundrel?

I teach it with Antonio as the true villain and that Shylock is just not a very likable person; a victim of circumstances. Both are tragic characters locked in a tragic battle where nobody wins.

I also point out Shylock's soliloquy in Act III** wherein he pretty much states that he is just the same as any Christian is as evidence Shakespeare was attempting to speak directly to his audience on that point. I also do a mini history lesson on the time period and how Shakespeare was in competition with executions and bear baiting. [This is also during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (1450-1789) and the Crusades would be a part of their memory as well as the expulsion of Jews from England in the 11th Century.] As such, he used anything and everything to get people to come watch his plays; including a ready made villain in Shylock. Largely, in the case of Merchant of Venice, he knew his audience was Christian and anti-Semitic. The ADL and my Jewish friends and aquaintances have aided me greatly in my search for background and germane evidence and/or issues realting to this topic.

Towards the end of Act IV, I show the court scene from the Al Pacino movie version to solidify the anti-Semitic feeling of the day and to expose the hypocrisy of fanatical Christianity at that time. Sadly, due to the gratuitous nudity I am unable to show the entire video. But Pacino's portrayal of Shylock [which was an absolutely marvelous performance] and of Antonio are precisely what I am after. The beginning of the movie shows the abject cruelty of Christians toward Jews...even in Venice, which was supposedly a very open minded city. I highly recommend it.

This is a 400 year-old play which is still just as topical as it was back in 1596 when it was first performed.


**Shylock: Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

—Act III, scene I, The Merchant of Venice

[MRS]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

he knew his audience was Christian and anti-Semitic

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

my Jewish friends and aquaintances have aided me greatly in my search for background and germane evidence and/or issues realting to this topic

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

This is a 400 year-old play which is still just as topical as it was back in 1596 when it was first performed.

I can't find the Pauline Kael review.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

I can't find the Pauline Kael review.

Of....?

My post regarding the play is my take on the characters and plot.

[GoodSpeak]

What's with the cut-and-paste, MRS?


You on a "fishing expedition" of some sort?