Hannah Arendt, 1955 I recently wrote about my disappointment in my Russian Jewish friends who, while fully opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine basically support Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Back then I wrote that the only Jews I know who speak against what Israel is doing are left wing.
This view is known as the "Lachrymose Conception" of Jewish History, which tends to amalgamate any (real or imagined) crime against Jewish persons or institutions as being caused by deeply embedded, often irrational hatred of them being Jewish.
There are, of course, a long history of intermittent persecutions by various social actors and states, but it is really unclear whether these were worse or more than the persecutions suffered by many other minority groups (Roma people, Armenians, Kurds, Yazidi, and various diaspora merchant communities seem pretty comparable).
It also often obfuscates particular causes. A good example is Caligula's persecution of Jews in Alexandria. Rather than being just because, there is a key Roman legal and political context. There was a direct challenge (because of inter communal rioting in Alexandria) to the Imperial Cult and the key Egyptian grain used for the Roman subsidy. Jewish farmers in Alexandria actually threatened to burn their fields and cause a famine if Caligula put his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem.
It would be like combining the statue tear down protests and pipeline protests at the same time. An Empire reacting with mass repression to protect its formal jurisdiction and key resources is hardly surprising or unique.
Like Ilya, I'm doing background reading. Do you know what he found useful? As of now Gabriel Piterberg's New Left Review articles from the 2000s stand out.
Also, if you could point to reliable revisions of cause of death on October 7 that would be helpful.
very true, and on the issue of former Soviet Union Jews - I was always wondering about their zeal to prove their Jewishness, as you say. I am not convinced it is latent anti-semitism in the S.U. that caused it. There is something else. Aren't they mostly packed off to West Bank to be 'the settlers' where they display their aggressiveness so rabidly. I was once told by a woman who lives in Tel Aviv that settlers are deeply despised in the Israeli society, even that they fulfil a useful function
Evgenia, I feel exactly as you do and it's a lonely feeling. Great article, a cri de coeur, really.
This view is known as the "Lachrymose Conception" of Jewish History, which tends to amalgamate any (real or imagined) crime against Jewish persons or institutions as being caused by deeply embedded, often irrational hatred of them being Jewish.
There are, of course, a long history of intermittent persecutions by various social actors and states, but it is really unclear whether these were worse or more than the persecutions suffered by many other minority groups (Roma people, Armenians, Kurds, Yazidi, and various diaspora merchant communities seem pretty comparable).
It also often obfuscates particular causes. A good example is Caligula's persecution of Jews in Alexandria. Rather than being just because, there is a key Roman legal and political context. There was a direct challenge (because of inter communal rioting in Alexandria) to the Imperial Cult and the key Egyptian grain used for the Roman subsidy. Jewish farmers in Alexandria actually threatened to burn their fields and cause a famine if Caligula put his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem.
It would be like combining the statue tear down protests and pipeline protests at the same time. An Empire reacting with mass repression to protect its formal jurisdiction and key resources is hardly surprising or unique.
Like Ilya, I'm doing background reading. Do you know what he found useful? As of now Gabriel Piterberg's New Left Review articles from the 2000s stand out.
Also, if you could point to reliable revisions of cause of death on October 7 that would be helpful.
very true, and on the issue of former Soviet Union Jews - I was always wondering about their zeal to prove their Jewishness, as you say. I am not convinced it is latent anti-semitism in the S.U. that caused it. There is something else. Aren't they mostly packed off to West Bank to be 'the settlers' where they display their aggressiveness so rabidly. I was once told by a woman who lives in Tel Aviv that settlers are deeply despised in the Israeli society, even that they fulfil a useful function