on it in that newspaper i did
http://forward.com/articles/182171/israels-everyday-racism-and-how-american-jews-tu/ Israel's Everyday Racism — and How American Jews Turn a Blind Eye to It
Refocus Anti-Semitism Outrage on Our Own Dirty Laundry
Jews were outraged when Jesse Jackson referred to New York as ‘Hymietown.’ Where’s the anger over Israeli public figures’ rampant racism?
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Jews were outraged when Jesse Jackson referred to New York as ‘Hymietown.’ Where’s the anger over Israeli public figures’ rampant racism?
By Larry Derfner
Published August 12, 2013.
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The Anti-Defamation League and the rest of the American Jewish establishment owe Jesse Jackson a big apology. They put the man through the wringer, they made him apologize in every possible forum for his “Hymie” and “Hymietown” remarks back in 1984. Yet look at the kinds of things Israeli leaders — senior government ministers, chief rabbis — get away with without ever having to apologize, without ever being punished in the slightest.
Just last week, Naftali Bennett, the fresh new face of right-wing Orthodox Judaism, said in a cabinet meeting how he didn’t like these releases of Palestinian prisoners. “If you catch terrorists, you simply have to kill them,” he was quoted in Yedioth Ahronoth as saying. The head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, told Bennett, “Listen, that’s not legal.” Bennett replied: “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
The media, the left and the Arabs made a big deal out of it, nobody else. Bennett defended what he said, and so did countless talkbackers and Facebookers.
Two days later the newly-elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, David Lau, was seen on a video telling an audience of yeshiva boys that they shouldn’t watch European basketball games in public.
“What difference does it make,” Lau said, “if the kushim who get paid in Tel Aviv beat the kushim who get paid in Greece?” Kushim, especially when used in a dismissive context like Lau did, is a well-understood derogatory term for blacks.
Again, the media, the left, some Ethiopian Jews and presumably some African refugees were outraged. But Lau defended his words, blaming the media, saying “they made a big deal out of a joke.”
Who else defended his remarks about “kushim”? Bennett: “The media are pouncing on him for a joking, insignificant remark.”
So really — what was so bad about “Hymies” and “Hymietown”? Or the thousand other anti-Semitic or even just possibly anti-Semitic remarks that the ADL and other American Jewish organizations have “pounced on” since then? Israeli public figures say the same kind of garbage, the difference is that they never, ever pay a price for it, in fact they usually manage to play the victim and get away with it, and at worst will be obliged to offer some backhanded apology.
Likud lawmaker Miri Regev is doing fine after having called Sudanese refugees “a cancer on our body” to a crowd of hopped-up south Tel Avivians in May of last year, shortly before the crowd went on a window-smashing mini-pogrom against the Africans in the neighborhood.
Legendary basketball coach Pini Gershon’s career and public stature didn’t suffer at all after he explained his racial theory about blacks to a class of amused army officers in 2000.
“The mocha-colored guys are smarter, but the dark colored ones are just guys off the street,” Gershon said. “They’re dumb like slaves, they do whatever you tell them.”
Nor was there any blowback whatsoever after Bibi Netanyahu bragged in 2007 that the cuts he’d made to child subsidies had brought a “positive” result, which he identified as “the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate.”
Imagine the scandal if an American political leader boasted publicly that his cuts to child subsidies had reduced the “non-Christian” birth rate. Imagine the ADL’s reaction. But in Israel, in 2007, from the mouth of a once-and-future prime minister — nothing.
These are just a few of the more appalling examples of the kind of racist remarks that Israeli politicians, rabbis and celebrities feel free to make. I haven’t even mentioned Avigdor Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. As a rule the words are directed at Arabs, now and then against blacks: either Ethiopian Jews, African refugees or athletes.
I’ve lived roughly half my 61 years in the United States, the other half in Israel. There is absolutely no comparison between American tolerance for public displays of racism and Israeli tolerance for it.
I’ve stood in the middle of Israeli crowds chanting “Death to the Arabs.” I’ve sat in a Tel Aviv soccer stadium watching and listening to an entire section of fans erupt in monkey sounds – “Hoo, hoo, hoo!! Hoo, hoo, hoo!! – after a black player on the visiting team scored a goal.
A few liberals and a few do-gooders and a few journalists wring their hands. But the racists in the street, the synagogues, the Knesset and the government go on doing their thing.
Does this mean all Israelis, or even most of them, are racists? No. Does it mean Israeli society, by commission and omission, encourages racism? Oh, yes. To a degree that would be unthinkable in the United States.
And the leaders of the U.S. Jewish establishment, Israel’s most valued, devoted, determined friends, keep pouncing on every untoward or conceivably untoward remark about Jews or the Jewish state. Yes, the ADL will send out a press release about its “concern” over the “inappropriate” remarks made by some relatively minor Israeli figure.
But it never hits hard at the major figures. It said nothing last week about Bennett or Lau. The ADL goes after anti-Semitism with a fist, it goes after Israeli racism with a sigh.
As a matter of fact, the ADL and the entire American Jewish establishment should suspend their campaigns against anti-Semitism indefinitely and take a look at what’s going on in Israel.
When the Jewish state is this riddled with racism, its advocates abroad should be a little less outraged over the offenses of gentiles. They should be a little more humble — and a lot less hypocritical.
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@ToniKamins · 15 hours ago
Hear hear!
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5 replies · active 6 hours ago
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@maglin2 · 10 hours ago
Suggest anyone buying into the notion that the word "kushim" and ****** are synonymous read this:
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2013/08/kushim...
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@maglin2 · 10 hours ago
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Kushim and the "******" Word
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2013/08/kushim...
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@ChanelSJohnson · 8 hours ago
until I saw the bank draft 4 $7927, I be certain that my mom in-law was realie bringing home money in there spare time at there computar.. there aunts neighbour had bean doing this 4 only about 22 months and as of now repaid the dept on there house and bought a brand new Mazda. this is where I went,
http://buzz360.biz/?1=bo0316Read more:
http://forward.com/articles/182205/william-rapfog...
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+2
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WildJew · 8 hours ago
Hear hear, what?
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+1
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HaSoferet · 6 hours ago
Hear, hear is a common expression of approval.
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-11
WildJew's avatar - Go to profile
WildJew · 15 hours ago
I want to comment only on one point for now.
Larry Derfner wrote: “If you catch terrorists, you simply have to kill them,” (Naftali Bennett) was quoted in Yedioth Ahronoth as saying. The head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Amidor, told Bennett, “Listen, that’s not legal.” Bennett replied: “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
Derfner: I’ve lived roughly half my 61 years in the United States, the other half in Israel. There is absolutely no comparison between American tolerance for public displays of racism and Israeli tolerance for it.
I’ve stood in the middle of Israeli crowds chanting “Death to the Arabs.....” etc.
I don't know if there is any culture that is free from racism. I have difficulty believing the Jews are the most racist culture / ethnic group on earth; in light of our history and other things.
This chanting of death to the Arabs happens largely after a brutal and bloody terror attack, suicide bombing or massacre of a Jewish family, husband, wife and little children, like the Fogel family was slaughtered in Itamar, Israel, March 2011. The family was slaughtered by Palestinian Arabs. Maybe it racist but let us not be naive. Americans had all kinds of dehumanizing names for the German enemy: the Hun, Heinies, Kraut, Nazi, Boche. I just finished a biography on President Harry S. Truman. Truman called Japanese "Japs" during the war, as did many if not most Americans. They were the enemy.
So Jesse Jackson considers me and every other Jew his mortal enemy. In Jackson's eyes, I am a Hymie. I've been called a k-ke by a neo-Nazi once. Fine. What would you expect? Jackson does not owe me an apology. I know where I stand in Jackson's eyes. Neither do Israelis or Naftali Bennett owe Jesse Jackson an apology.
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6 replies · active 1 hour ago
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Theazcowboy Az · 14 hours ago
I guess Israel's Operation Cast Lead - (Gaby Ashkanazi), The Sabra & Shatilla massacres (Menechem Begin/Arik Sharon), 'Jenin' (Sharon again) pogrom and thousands of minor pogroms committed by the ZioNazi racists against the indigenious people of Palestine in the past 65 years should keep you in tears for 1,000 years, huh?
The most poisonous Jews (Settlers) teach their kids to hate Arabs (Amaleks?) and they go into the IDF and commit atrocities (cutting Palestinian mothers holding their babies in half <See Goldstone Report to the UN> - Gaza 12/2008 - 01/2009) without a scintilla of shame or regret.
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WildJew · 14 hours ago
I am not smart enough to know who is Amalek. Moses wrote: “Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God...."
Is it possible those Palestinians who massacred the Fogel family, even slaughtering children in cold blood, qualify as Amalek? You say the most poisonous Jews teach their children to hate Arabs. If that is so, why don't we see Jewish suicide bombers? Why aren't the Jews going into Arab homes and slaughtering Palestinian Arab children the way we see Palestinian Arabs slaughtering Jewish children? Jews kill Palestinian jihadists and civilians are killed in the midst of the fighting (often the jihadists hide in hospitals and schools; they hide among women and children) but are Jews deliberately targeting Palestinian children?
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Bill Pearlman · 12 hours ago
blah, blah, blah, blah
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Pol Belik · 1 hour ago
Sabra and shatilla was a massacre done by maronite christians. jenin was never a pogrom. the death toll of palestinian side was between 50-60 and half of them were weaponed. israel lost 11 fighters. so dont call it a pogrom. the last pogrom in middle east was in hebron in the 20s of the last century, were a mob of arabs slaugtered old jewish hebron families. and now in gaza the hamas preparing a mass execution of "traitors". how many people died through the hands of arabs? in syria, egypt, lebanon, algier etc. the arabs are their own worst enemy.
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-3
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WildJew · 10 hours ago
My goodness! All these thumbs-down. Anyone care to tell me where I am wrong? Maybe I will alter my opinion. Have anyone of you had a loved-one blown up in a bus, a disco, a restaurant? Have you had to bury the scraps of flesh of your loved one because there was nothing else left? Where is the consistency?
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TheBigJ · 3 hours ago
WildJew,
You'll find that many antisemites will post under more than one screen name. I recently outed one on another forum--a racist, Christian-hating, white-hating, antisemite. The same may be true for these multiple hands down; could be just one person doing all of them.
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+8
David's avatar
David · 14 hours ago
A Jewish democratic state is an oxymoron. The way I understand democracy in this century is that the state may make no distinction among its citizens on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and other similar states cannot be democratic. One reason we Jews have survived for so long is that we were not gathered in one place. One reason we Jews have lived well in democratic countries is that we were generally treated equally with non-Jews. Israel satisfied a Jewish longing, but it is not good for long term Jewish survival if most of us gather there. Herzl wanted a state where Jews can be like other peoples. He got it. Now we can be just as bigoted as those who have oppressed us.
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3 replies · active 2 hours ago
-1
Bill Pearlman's avatar
Bill Pearlman · 14 hours ago
Worked like a charm in Germany
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@ToniKamins · 13 hours ago
I take your point, but I'm not sure Germany is the best example. The foundations of the Weimar Republic were too flawed and wouldn't have survived even without the rise of Nazism.
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Anuvai · 2 hours ago
David - Please note that in your local library you'll find a book entitled "The History of the Jewish People", just like other books entitled "The History of the French People" or "The History of the Greek People" - however, you won't find a book entitled "The History of the Muslim People" or "The History of the Christian People". In short, the Jews are a people (a nation) like the Swedes or the Poles (for whom states were founded), whereas the Christians or the Buddhists are not a people. So, you can have a French state or an Estonian state or a Jewish state - and these states are democratic. You "understand" that a state "in this century" makes no distinction on the basis of ethnicity. Please note that nearly all the European states are based on ethnicity: France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia (the list is VERY long). These are called "nation-states" - a state founded for a particular ethnic group (a nation, those sharing a common descent). For you, David, the Jews are merely a religious community - but the Jews are a peoplehood identity (and that's why we have a history, including statehood in antiquity and in modern times). Ironically, the Jewish religion defines us as a nation: "And who is like Your people Israel, a unique nation in the world".
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Theazcowboy Az · 14 hours ago
No only does Israel NOT havea Constitution, NO, Bill of Rihgts,' and (of course) NO Borders. So let's quit this 'Only democracy in the Middle East caca when, infact, it's complete lie.
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4 replies · active 2 hours ago
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WildJew · 13 hours ago
Isn't the Torah our Constitution?
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Laura Wharton · 13 hours ago
Israeli law is based on British law -- and Great Britain doesn't have a constitution, either. The fact that Israel has no recognized borders does not mean that it isn't a democracy -- we actually have a far more representative system than the U.S., with a dozen parties rather than only two.
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@ToniKamins · 13 hours ago
It's always so refreshing when anti-Jewish cretins troll the web for places to take a dump. Of course these cowards never use their own names.
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TheBigJ · 2 hours ago
And they often post under more than one name. Such a thing took place recently on a JTA forum, and if you looked at the two screen names, you'd find the exact same writing style, same anti-semitism, same swearing, same monikers, and same hatred for Republicans, Christians, and whites. I outed him.
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Laura Wharton · 13 hours ago
There is certainly a terribly serious problem with racism in Israel -- but it is due to the ongoing war and current government and has nothing to do with the political system. Israel's political system allowed for a flourishing social-democratic country until 1967/
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1 reply · active 13 hours ago
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@freedomfunnies · 13 hours ago
It's true! There was no racism in Israel prior to 1967! Just ask the Palestinian residents of Israel who lived under martial law until 1966! Ask the Palestinian owners of property that was seized by the Labor government, including land, books, houses, and other assets! Ask the non-Ashkenazi Jews, who will tell you that the Labor governments of 1948-67 loved them and treated them very humanely, never with any scintilla of racism. It's amazing how that all flipped 180 degrees during those six miraculous days in June.....
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@samuel1chandel · 12 hours ago
Hunter. true that Richard`s storry is flabbergasting... I just purchased Mazda since getting a check for $7896 this - 5 weeks past and a little over 10-k this past-munth. without a question it is the nicest-job Ive had. I began this four months/ago and immediately was bringin in over $71 p/h. I follow this great link,,
www.work25.ℂom
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+9
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sandbox · 11 hours ago
Larry Derfner is right, Israeli leadership needs to speak out more often when racist or ethnic slurs are made.
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DukeovEarl · 10 hours ago
Amazing that this is even a subject of debate. How incapable of looking in the mirror we've become.
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@ChanelSJohnson · 8 hours ago
until I saw the bank draft 4 $7927, I be certain that my mom in-law was realie bringing home money in there spare time at there computar.. there aunts neighbour had bean doing this 4 only about 22 months and as of now repaid the dept on there house and bought a brand new Mazda. this is where I went,
http://buzz360.biz/?1=bo0316Read more:
http://forward.com/articles/182205/william-rapfog...
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joe_r · 7 hours ago
We can't be too surprised at the fruit of Zionism if we look at the roots.
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Hwmk Psitg · 5 hours ago
Does Jackson look gay in that picture or what!?! :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0
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+2
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TheBigJ · 2 hours ago
Speaking as a conservative/libertarian who is pro-Israel, I have to say that I agree with the premise of this article. Israeli society needs to do much more to combat racism and xenophobia within its ranks.
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Anuvai · 2 hours ago
Methinks he (Mr Derfner) doth exaggerate too much... Once upon a time, the State of Israel dropped in its army into Ethiopia. The soldiers led thousands of people on foot through hostile territory to the coast of Sudan, where there were picked up by our navy (all quite illegal and very dangerous) and brought to live with us in Israel. On another occasion, when the government of Ethiopia fled town, all the El-Al flights throughout the world were canceled - and the entire fleet of planes was flown to Ethiopia where tens of thousands were flown in a secret and dramatic airlift to Israel. Again, it was illegal and very dangerous - but Israel feels that these people are ours, and hence we were willing to risk the lives of our soldiers in order for these people to come and live with us. Now, Mr Derfner - since you feel that comparison with the USA is somehow relevant - do you think that there would be a set of circumstances in which the USA would send in its army or send a fleet of planes in order to bring to the USA tens of thousands of non-citizens from some third-world country who have been dreaming all their lives that they wish to be in America? I don't think so. Perhaps, you could put just a little bit of balance into your very slanted view of "racial" issues in Israel. You live in Israel. Go visit an absorption center, and then give yourself a pat on the back for being very special.
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@MJ_Goldstein · 13 minutes ago
Good Jews = Those who keep their mouths shut and their wallets open.
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Enter text right here!
Unique Legacy of CoexistenceFirst Asian-American Rabbi Vies for Role at Central Synagogue
Unique Legacy of CoexistenceGenetic Testing For Sephardic Jews Faces Reluctant Community
Unique Legacy of CoexistenceWilliam Rapfogel Fired From Met Council Amid Criminal Probe
Unique Legacy of CoexistenceIsrael's Everyday Racism — and How American Jews Turn a Blind Eye to It
Unique Legacy of CoexistenceResurgent Anti-Semitism Stokes Fears of Second Holocaust
Read more:
http://forward.com/articles/182171/israels-everyday-racism-and-how-american-jews-tu/#ixzz2bqU7YZPO
Topic: Look at this loving article about Jesse Jackson in a 'Jewish' newspaper comment (Read 872 times)