It’s clear that anti-Semitism is back in vogue.
This point has unfortunately been made abundantly clear in the blogosphere over the past week, thanks to some of the bloggers over at the Gawker Media blogs Gawker and Wonkette.
If you are not familiar with these blogs, they typify what I refer to as trash blogging – not blogging anything of substance but rather talking trash about everyone because they are way too cool. Forget the fact that many of these bloggers are probably still living in their mom’s basement – it doesn’t seem to matter since these blogs get heaps of traffic.
Last week, Gawker editor Alex Balk decided to show his scorn for religiously observant Jews with this post on the Harry Potter-Sabbath row (hat tip: Jewlicious).
Avraham Ravitz of the United Torah Judaism Party slammed the Potter books for their “defective messages.”
“We don’t have to be dragged like monkeys after the world with this subculture, and certainly not while violating our holy Sabbath,” Ravitz said in a statement.
Not to get all Hitchens on you, but isn’t this exactly how some of us feel about, you know, the Bible and its subculture of weird, tallis-wearing followers? Give us this wizard any day. (Actually, don’t, we’re f**king grown-ups, but you get the point.).
While the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Caro hit the nail on the head with this response to the offensive Gawker post….
[T]hey’re being postmodern and ironic. They’re playing to a crowd that appreciates such wink-wink references (the comments include several inside jokes about Jewish law and nary a complaint). There’s already a popular Jewish magazine called Heeb, so why not embrace all slurs and stereotypes? Don’t take offense; it’s all in quotation marks.
..this only seemed to make Balk more determined than ever to prove Caro’s point.
Actually? We were writing about life in a theocracy? But now that you mention it, yeah, we really hate the Jews too.
Proving that he can’t quit while he’s ahead a d*** head, Balk upped the ante anti.
Dear Jew,
We are sincerely sorry for offending your delicate Jew sensibilities. Yes, it’s true, there are a few Jews here in the office—we’ve crunched the numbers, and four out of five Gawker editors have at least some Jew blood in them (not on them!)—and we do think that gives us the right to make Jew jokes. But you know what? None of us are Irish, thank God, and we still knock the micks every now and again. We’re kinda of the opinion that the idea of ethnicity and its accompanying stereotypes are inherently hilarious. So, sure, we may not know a lot about life in Israel—do you guys still eat the Palestinian kids after your tanks run them over, or did you stop that once Rabin came into office? Do we still send Israel billions of dollars a year?—but, guess what, we think the comical ways in which your Jew country kowtows to the craziest Jew elements of crazy Jewiness could not be funnier. Hope that’s okay!
Shalom,
Balk
But even this wasn’t enough for Balk, and he followed up with a post entitled Exactly What Is So Funny About The Jews, posting a diagram which listed, amongst other things, giant noses, cheapness, the holocaust, and constant bitching about anti-Semitism.
But remember: Don’t take offense; it’s all in quotation marks.
Not to be outdone, Alex Pareene from sister blog Wonkette (who really does look like he still lives in his mom’s basement) continued the open season on the Jews.
In a stunning rocket, Rudy Jew-liani basically admitted that he doesn’t know anything at all about foreign policy — or maybe that he knows too much. In an interview with the Jew York Times, Rudy inavertendly revealed that the US has been fighting an entire extra war these last few years that only he knows about.
After an Israeli blogger suggested there may be anti-Semitism at play here, he was quickly threatened with legal action by Wonkette editor Ken Layne. While Layne subsequently tried to weasel out of the legal threat, what was more disturbing was his defiance. He was simply not willing to acknowledge that the terms Jew-liani and Jew York Times could be offensive.
For the record, I am not sure that the bloggers in question are anti-Semitic. What I am sure about is the fact they see evoking anti-Semitic stereotypes and poking fun at the Jewish faith as not just perfectly acceptable, but more a way to ingratiate themselves with a young and “hip” Left-leaning crowd. The crowd that “appreciates such wink-wink references,” as Mark Caro so eloquently put it.
Anti-Semitism is so back in vogue.
