How Shlomo Sand Ceased to be a Jew – or Did He?

By Gilad Atzmon
http://dissidentvoice.org

Sand’s latest book, How I Ceased To Be A Jew, (translated from Hebrew) is a tragic testimony made by a morally awakened Israeli Jew who comes to realise that his spiritual, cultural and political existence is contaminated with Judeo-centric exclusivism and is fuelled by ethno-centric racism. Shlomo Sand decides to stop being a Jew – but has he succeeded?

Sand, as we all know, is a wonderful writer; witty, innovative, poetic and fluent, his voice is personal, at times funny, occasionally sarcastic and always genuinely pessimistic.

Sand’s writing is scholarly, deep, reflective and imaginative; however, his scholarship is pretty much limited to French liberal thinking and early post-modernist theory. The outcome is disappointing at times. How I Ceased To Be A Jew is a ‘politically correct’ text, saturated with endless caveats inserted to disassociate the author from any possible affiliation with anyone who may be viewed as an opponent of Jewish power, critical of Jewish identity politics or a challenger of the mainstream historicity of the Holocaust.

“I don’t write for anti-Semites, I regard them as totally ignorant or people who suffer from an incurable disease,” (p. 21) writes the author who claims to be humanist, universalist and far removed from Jewish exclusivism.^* It all sounds very Jewish to me. When it comes to the Holocaust, Sand uses the same tactic and somehow manages to lose all wit and scholarly fashion. The Nazis are “beasts”, their rise to power metaphorically described as a “beast awakening from its lair.” I would expect a leading historian and ex-Jew to have moved on beyond these kinds of banal clichés.

Sand writes about identity politics and is certainly sensitive to the complexities of this subject. He argues forcefully that nationalism is an ‘invention’, yet, for some reason he attributes some forensic qualities to identity and the politics involved. Perhaps Sand fails to realise that identity politics is actually a form of identification – it is there to replace authenticity. For example, Zionism was born as an attempt to replace Judaic authentic orientation with an imaginary sense of national belonging – Israeli identity is a collection of signifiers set to make the Jew believe that he or she has a past, present and future. Identity is basically a set of symbolic identifiers that evoke a sense of collectivism. If you pierce your right ear, you become a club member, if you sport a kaffiyeh you become a solidarity activist, if you manage to utter a few Israeli sound-bites you may become a Zionist. All these identities lack any authentic depth.

Little Britain, a BBC comedy show, provides us with an invaluable insight into this. Daffyd Thomas (The Only Gay in the Village) exhibits a wide range of gay symbolic identifiers without ever once being engaged in a single homosexual intercourse. So Daffyd, while identifying as gay – politically, socially and culturally – saves himself of the elementary authentic experience as a homosexual.

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Mohammed Omer: Israel encircles Gazans, PA denies their right to a passport

Israel partisans work to block South Dakota lectures – World Affairs Council caves, others go forward

Contact:  202.631.4060

Israel partisans are attempting to censor talks on the Israeli-Palestinian issue scheduled to take place around South Dakota next week. The South Dakota World Affairs Council has given into the pressure and pulled its sponsorship of one of the talks, but other lectures are going forward as scheduled, at least so far.

The talk is by former journalist Alison Weir, who is president of the Council for the National Interest (CNI), which is now sponsoring the talk. CNI is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization founded 20 years ago by former Congressmen and ambassadors to work for Middle East policies not dominated by special interests. Former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk is on the board of directors.

Weir is also executive director of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit think tank that specializes in media analysis and providing facts and statistics on Israel-Palestine.

Both organizations emphasize that it is particularly essential that Americans be well informed on Israel-Palestine since U.S. taxpayers have given more money to Israel than to any other country, currently over $8 million per day. Over the years, American taxpayers have outright given Israel well over $100 billion. Some analysts place additional costs at over a trillion dollars.

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The Sound of the Past

MJ Rosenberg on Anti Zionist Zionists

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:  In The Wandering Who I dealt primarily with those I define as the ‘3^rd category Jews’ - those who put their Jewishness over and above all of their other traits. I also referred  to Chaim Weizmann’s famous observation that “there are no English, French, German or American Jews, but only Jews living in England, France, Germany or America.” I obviously argue that Jews who fall into the 3^rd category are primarily Zionists. In most cases they support Zionism but even when they oppose it, and in spite being ‘progressive’ and ‘secular’, they, for some reason, prefer to operate politically ‘as Jews’. I guess that they must attribute a certain kind of specialness to their ethnic origin – they are ‘Judeo centric.’

In the following piece, MJ Rosenberg courageously reports on a recent encounter with a bright American Jewish boy.

“You may not realize it,” the boy tells Rosenberg,  “but your premise is Zionist. You think Jews are, by definition, connected to Israel and have to care about it. But that isn’t who I am.  I’m an American kid whose religion is Jewish.”

It took more than a century for a Jewish boy to answer Weizmann; I am not a ‘Jew who lives in America’. I am actually an American Jew.

But what about the progressive Jews who care so much for Palestine? The boy answers, “the Jewish kids who are deeply involved with Israel or Palestinians are sort of the same kids. They accept your premise that they are connected to that place.” Strictly Speaking, they are Weizmannian Jews!

“You, MJ, are a Zionist,” he continues,  “You think I have an obligation to try to stop the occupation because of my religion. To me, that is no different than telling me I have to support Netanyahu because of my religion.”

I actually admire Rosenberg for sharing this fascinating conversation with the rest of us. I guess that more and more people within the anti-war and the Palestinian solidarity movement know it by now: we are dealing here with liberal Zionists who more than often operate as controlled opposition but most of the time are merely AZZ (anti-zionist zionists).

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And What about the Spanish Shoa?

By Gilad Atzmon

The JTA reported this week that the Spanish parliament is set to vote on an amendment that would make Holocaust studies obligatory for Spanish students.

If passed, the proposed amendment would introduce the genocide of the Jews by Nazi Germany into the curriculum. One may wonder whether Spanish youngsters are also going to study about the devastating role of revolutionary Jews at the time of the Spanish Civil War. A quarter of Stalin’s International Brigade were socialist Jews. Driven by hatred to the church and Fascism, the destruction they left behind was enormous.

This dark chapter in Jewish history isn’t properly investigated. Maybe, the Spanish ministry of education should consider to look into it first.

British Jewry’s Golden Age

By Gilad Atzmon

“Britain's Jews fall in number but grow in self-confidence”  stated yesterday’s Observer headline. Ned Temko ex-editor of the rabid Zionist Jewish Chronicle  reviewed the state of the Jews in the Kingdom amid the opening of a new 50 million pounds Jewish cultural centre in West Hampstead. 

According to the Observer we are awaiting a “new departure for the Jews of Britain”. But don’t worry folks, this time it isn’t a new global war promoted by CFI (Conservative Friends of Israel) or advocated by Hasbara writer David Aaronovitch. This time it’s just the opening of the JW3 – the London Jewish Community Centre –  a spectacular exhibition of British Jews and their gift. “Its initial menu of nearly 1,000 events features well-known figures including Kevin Spacey, Nicholas Hytner, Zoë Wanamaker and Ruby Wax, as well as the former editor of the Times, James Harding, who is now head of BBC news.”

Just a few days ago, in spite of relentless pressure by the Jewish Lobby, the English speaking empire just managed to escape a new immoral interventionist war in Syria. By the weekend, the Observer was kind enough to remind us how influential Jews in this country are. “Despite their major impact in areas such as the professions, science, culture and the arts, the Jews of Britain now comprise a grand total of some 260,000 souls – less than 0.5% of the population. Outwardly, they are more self-confident, especially younger Jews who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural Britain.”

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Yom Kippur, War and the Power Of Deterrence

By Gilad Atzmon

Today is Yom Kippur and the 40^th anniversary of the 1973 Arab–Israeli (Yom Kippur) War. That war caught Israel totally on the hop. In the first days of the conflict, both the IDF and the IAF were defeated and humiliated. Moshe Dayan, the legendary Israeli defence minister, contemplated out loud the ‘destruction of the 3^rd Temple’ and, according to different intelligence sources, Israel was close to using its ‘Samson option’ - a nuclear strike against Egypt.

Interestingly, neither the Egyptians nor the Syrians had any plans to ‘throw the Jews to the sea.’ In fact, their military objectives were rather limited – liberating land occupied by Israel in 1967.  The Egyptians attempted to secure a narrow bridge-head over the Suez Canal and the Syrians hoped to free the Golan Heights or at least part of it.

But driven by pre-Traumatic Stress (Pre-TSD), Israeli army generals and the government managed to recast this joint Arab operation as nothing less than an emerging Shoa. Consequently, at least for the first days of the war, they panicked and unnecessarily and critically exhausted Israeli military assets and force. 

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Israeli Projection

In this IDF's propaganda film Israel projects its symptoms on Lebanese Resistance

Must Watch: Jews, Movies and the "American Dream"