A man called Eichmann Abu Atwan
I opened the Feb 27 issue of the New Yorker and almost choked on my tea. It seems that this Palestinian was born during the trial of Adolf Eichmann and for obvious reasons, his father could not think of a better namesake for his child.
Where do I begin... I feel like it would be a waste of energy to start expounding on all the self-evident consequences of my opening paragraph. So instead I think I will just meditate on anti-semitism.
We have been bitching and moaning about it and I think it really devalues the idea. It is truly a timeless thing, it seems. The depth of the hatred and the consistency across centuries. In no place, in no time, thus far has it been the case that anti-semitism actually is eradicated. It just seems to go into remission. So what then is the legacy I leave my children? Just the surety that if the patterns bear out, the world will most likely turn against them again in murderous hate, and if not them, then their children, or else, most definitely their children's children.
posted by e-kvetcher at 6:56 PM
4 Comments:
OR, they can turn on the anti-Semites! The hunting season is open (see Cheney for details).
E
Are you suggesting that in moments of despair you would consider not raising your children as Jews?
Certainly the legacy you leave them--Torah, the community, the learning--is meritorious enough in itself to offset the potential risk of antisemitism that all Jews fear we pass onto our children.
Are you suggesting that in moments of despair you would consider not raising your children as Jews?
Jethro, I was not looking for answers, so - no, I was not suggesting the above.
All I was saying is that it just doesn't seem that ultimately we've made any progress towards the anti-semitism problem.
Dave, I think exactly the same... I wrote a post about this in June.
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