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December 2015

The Novelist of Jewish Unity Hillel Halkin

Alas….not available in English….rsk
Did Jews recognizably still exist as a people in the late 19th century? Many questioned it. In his packed and vibrant fiction, the great Peretz Smolenskin proved them wrong.

This essay is the third in a series of fresh looks by Hillel Halkin at seminal Hebrew writers and thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The first two essays, on the proto-Zionist novelists Joseph Perl and Abraham Mapu, are available here and here.

In Peretz Smolenskin’s first Hebrew novel, Simḥat Ḥanef, a title taken from the book of Job and translatable as “The Humbug’s Happiness,” there is an account, set in the 1850s or 60s, of a stagecoach journey from Berdichev, a heavily Jewish town in central Ukraine, to the Black Sea port of Odessa. (Like other East European writers of Hebrew fiction, Smolenskin gave his Russian or Polish towns and cities imaginary and sometimes comic Hebrew names, generally formed by inverting or rearranging their letters. Thus, the Berdichev of The Humbug’s Happiness is Toshavey-Ba’ar—roughly, “Inhabitants of Ignorance”—while Odessa is Ashadot, “Waterfalls.”) The passage starts with an introductory reflection of the kind that Smolenskin (ca. 1840-1885), a prolific essayist as well as a writer of fiction, was fond of: in this case, a brief discourse on the spread of Russian railroads, the consequent demise of stagecoach travel, and the author’s obligation to memorialize the old means of transportation “so that posterity may recall the cumbersome ways of its ancestors.” Once the technologically transformative 19th century will have succeeded in changing everything, the narrator of The Humbug’s Happiness asks, who will believe that stagecoaches ever existed? “It’s all a figment of your imagination,” future historians who unearth such relics from the darkness of the past will be told.

Nietzsche’s Hatred of “Jew Hatred” By Brian Leiter A Review of Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism, by Robert C. Holub

Robert Holub’s topic arises from an historical accident: the triumph of the Nazis in the early 1930s meant all competing German readings of Nietzsche (then the preeminent figure in German culture) were suppressed and he was enlisted in the service of National Socialism, which has tainted him ever since with anti-semitism. In one respect, Holub is admirably clear: “[T]here is no question that [Nietzsche] was unequivocally antagnostic toward what he understood as anti-Semitism and anti-Semites” (125; cf. xiv, 208). Yet, Holub argues, Nietzsche is still guilty of “Judeophobia,” that is, of displaying a “negative bias towards Jews and Judaism” (xiv; cf. 209). Curiously, the book tries to make the case largely through letters and unpublished material—as well as a good deal of innuendo and speculation—rather than systematic engagement with Nietzsche’s actual philosophical work, until the final chapter. We consider, below, the evidence adduced and the sometimes astonishing inferences Holub draws from it.

In an illuminating first chapter, Holub documents the different receptions of Nietzsche prior to the Nazi era, noting that leftists were attracted to Nietzsche because of his “rather vivid expressions of contempt toward the institutions of middle-class society, which they also rejected” (3). As Nietzsche’s fame grew, those on the German right faced the dilemma that “his many deprecatory statements about Germans and Germany” made it “problematic” to appropriate his stature for their cause (8). Early German commentators, like Adolf Bartles, even acknowledge “that Nietzsche is no anti-semite” (8). The crucial interpreter for Nazi purposes, however, was Alfred Baeumler, who argued in the 1930s that “Nietzsche’s anti-German remarks must be understood in the context of Bismarck’s rule” (13) and that the praise Nietzsche lavishes on the Jews must be understood “rhetorically…as a foil to the Germans in order to goad them to greatness” (13). In other words, even though Nietzsche hated German militarism and nationalism, it was only Bismarck’s version; and even though he lavished praise on Jews, it was only to inspire good Germans to do better. Backed by the Nazi state, in which Baeumler served as principal Nazi liason to the universities, these tortured hermeneutics prevailed and sullied Nietzsche’s reputation.

Pulp Fiction by Mark Steyn

The Hateful Eight, billed as “the 8th film by Quentin Tarantino”, has opened in selected cities in 70mm format. I’d thought by this stage that some new young hungry film critics would have emerged who’d like to make their names by having a go at the aging enfant terrible. But, judging from the reviews, that does not seem to be the case. On the other hand, I gather there’s some sort of boycott being mounted by those offended by Tarantino’s recent remarks re black men who get shot by cops. It would be, as they say, ironic were the director to be damaged by a political stance he took off-screen, since as James Wood wrote in The Guardian two decades ago:

Tarantino represents the final triumph of postmodernism, which is to empty the artwork of all content, thus avoiding its capacity to do anything except helplessly represent our agonies… Only in this age could a writer as talented as Tarantino produce artworks so vacuous, so entirely stripped of any politics, metaphysics, or moral interest.

James Wood made his observation with regard to Pulp Fiction, but it has held up pretty reliably over the years. “Pulp fiction” used to mean a lurid style of American serial writing so-called because of the cheap quality of paper used. But I would imagine today that far more people recognize it as the name of a famous Tarantino movie than the genre he was riffing off. As a helpful dictionary entry at the start of the movie reminds us, “pulp” has two meanings: aside from the fiction style, it’s also a “soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter”. Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a trio of gangster storylines told in mashed-up chronology, is not pulp in the first sense: writers at, say, The Black Mask (the hardboiled crime magazine, whose name Tarantino intended to borrow for his movie’s title) favored heightened, pacey prose, tense plotting, surprise twists, cliffhanger endings. Quentin Tarantino inclines more towards that second definition: a soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter, its constituent parts smoothly mixed and puréed until the whole is as consistent as a light, fluffy scrambled egg — or, as French cinéastes would say, a scrambled oeuvre. Most fiction is a question of weighting : this moment of high drama is more important than that moment of domestic banality. But, once Tarantino’s pulped it, it all comes out the same: tense trigger-cocked stand-offs or long, querulous conversations about what’s in a five-dollar milk shake. In 1994 the latter sequences passed instantly into the language as the acme of cool.

A Petition for Israeli Tenured Leftists Clarifying the Party Line once and for all. December 28, 2015 Steven Plaut

We are the Tenured Far Leftists on the faculties of Israeli universities. We obediently sign our names to sundry petitions initiated by our colleagues, but those petitions do not really explain fully and clearly what we want. We wish to clarify what that is once and for all.

First of all, while we obsessively recite the mantra about how the “occupation” is the quintessence of all evil in the world and the source of all Middle East violence, we actually understand that any ending of the “occupation” in the West Bank would have exactly the same consequences as the ending of “occupation” in Gaza. These would include tens of thousands of missiles fired into the rump-Israel, into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa, from the “liberated Palestine,” in addition to thousands of incursions of armed terrorists. So if we actually understand this perfectly well, why do we advocate the ending of the “occupation”?

Such advocacy is a form of comfortable political recreation and moral posturing for us, a sort of lounge-chair high and hot-tub mirth, not really an alternative we want to see implemented. It is to allow us to posture righteousness. We know that we represent only the most extreme 2% (or less) of Israelis and so the rest of the public will never agree to any such implementation. We are counting on that.

Florida Muslim Leader Commemorates Hamas, Calls Jews Monkeys and Pigs Sofian Zakkout: Man of peace in English, hides his bigotry and violence in Arabic. Joe Kaufman

When South Florida Muslim leader Sofian Zakkout wants people to believe he is a man of peace, he speaks or writes it in English. But when Zakkout wants to show his true colors and curse Jews or call for violence against people, he does so in Arabic. This month, Zakkout’s real self came out once again, as he labeled Jews the “grandsons of monkeys and pigs,” while commemorating the 28th anniversary of Hamas.

Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout is the Director of the American Muslim Association of North America or AMANA. While the organization may not be very well known outside of South Florida, AMANA is a major player for the Muslim community in the local area. In fact, Zakkout and his group have firm ties to two dozen mosques in the vicinity.

Because of Zakkout’s position of leadership, when he makes a statement, it needs to be taken seriously. In English, he will tell media outlets about how he is a man of peace, about how he was, for years, the co-chair of the Jewish Arab Dialogue Association (JADA). In Arabic, he will make statements which are quite the opposite, supporting and inciting hatred and terror.

This month, Zakkout has been hard at work spreading the vilest of anti-Semitism in Arabic.

Naming the Muslim Brotherhood a National Security Threat It’s time to start speaking the truth about the Brotherhood. Daniel Greenfield

The Muslim Brotherhood is to Islamic terrorism what a virus is to disease. Major terrorist leaders from the Caliph of ISIS to Arafat have the Muslim Brotherhood on their resume. And the current leader of Al Qaeda led a Muslim Brotherhood splinter terror group. But its linkages to Islamic terrorism are only a secondary aspect of the organization whose focus is on Islamizing nations through more subtle means.

Paradoxically the Brotherhood has met with far less success in the Muslim world than in the West. Its greatest victories in the Arab Spring would not have happened without Obama’s backing and its takeovers of Egypt and Tunisia were rolled back by popular uprisings while its efforts in Libya, Syria and Yemen were stymied by armed conflict with other Muslims.

The Muslim Brotherhood is unpopular in Egypt these days. It’s also unpopular with Americans.

In one poll, 61 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood. Only 11 percent had a positive view of the Islamic supremacist organization. Only 5 percent of Americans saw the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt as a positive development.

Dumb Idea of the Year Award by Douglas Murray

Vadim Nikitim is the genius who last week proposed not only that we treat ISIS as a state, but that we grant ISIS diplomatic recognition.

Rather than realizing that the Soviet Union collapsed because of its economic system, Nikitim seems to think it fell apart because countries such as the US and UK recognized it diplomatically — demonstrating that there is no better way to get the present wrong than by getting the past wrong.

The case of Saudi prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir might give the impression that you can rape and kill a manservant in a London hotel and get away with only the lightest of sentences.

Ambassadors from ISIS, on the other hand, will need to prove themselves somewhat, and first funnel many lucrative contracts our way before behavior like this becomes acceptable.

Of course, there is always that pesky problem: What if militant Islam (or Iran) does not want to “forge a long (or short) peace” with us? Is there a Plan B?

It is that Dumb Idea of the Year Award time again, and among the many stellar contenders, one in particular stands out.

Does the U.S. Need the Minuteman? by Peter Huessy

It seems that the U.S., without a Minuteman missile force, would make it easy — in fact tempting — for an adversary such as Russia to take out the entire U.S. strategic nuclear force in one or a series of very limited first strikes.

Under Secretary Perry’s proposal, the U.S. “target set” of nuclear submarines and bombers would consist of five military bases: three for bombers and two for submarines, and a handful of submarines at sea. From over 500 targets today, to fewer than 10. It would be as if the U.S. declared to its enemies, “Come and get us.”

The elimination of the Minuteman missile force, recommended by Dr. Perry, would leave Russia with an alarming ratio — nearly 200:1 — of Russian warheads to American nuclear assets. This disparity could push the strategic nuclear balance toward heightened instabilities.

Another way to look at it is that the Minuteman would cost only 1/3 of 1% of the total current budget of the Department of Defense.

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry calls for the nuclear land based force of 450 Minuteman missiles to be eliminated. He says that the United States does not need the missiles for nuclear deterrence. He also says that, because of Russia’s current reckless and cavalier attitude about the early use of Russian nuclear weapons, he worries that in a crisis, an American President might launch Minuteman missiles out of fear that Russia might preemptively launch a first strike against America’s “vulnerable” missile silos.

The Palestinians Descend Deeper Into Depravity By David French

While American eyes are rightly fixed on ISIS, Palestine’s so-called “Stabbing Intifada” continues. For those unfamiliar with the latest twist in Palestinian terror tactics, Israel is beset by a spate of apparently spontaneous stabbing attacks, where (mostly) young Palestinians grab kitchen knives or other sharp objects and do their best to stab or hack to death as many Jews as possible. The Washington Post has the chilling details:

Young Palestinians with kitchen knives are waging a ceaseless campaign of near-suicidal violence that Israeli leaders are calling “a new kind of terrorism.” There were three attacks on Christmas Eve — two stabbings and one car ramming.

There have been about 120 attacks and attempted assaults by Palestinians against Israelis since early October, an average of more than one a day. At least 20 Israelis have been killed; more than 80 Palestinians have been shot dead by security forces and armed civilians during the assaults.

There is a numbing repetition to the news: knife-wielding Palestinian at a military checkpoint or bus stop shot dead at the scene — or “neutralized,” as the Israeli media call it. Many of the assaults or their aftermaths have been captured on cellphone videos.

Christians Bear Witness Shahbaz Bhatti was killed for his faith. His brother, Paul, is telling his story to the West. By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Rome — “I was forced to flee the country with my family after a violent attack on my residence by extremists,” said Dr. Paul Bhatti, a surgeon who had to flee his homeland of Pakistan. Speaking to an international conference on religious liberty (titled “Under Caesar’s Sword”) here this month, he said: “One morning, I awoke to find extremists trying to cut the steel security bars on the front windows of my residence. This was unsettling, to say the least.”

He understates it because, in retrospect, it was far from the worst his family would suffer.

Dr. Bhatti decided for the sake of his family and career to move to Italy, disappointing his brother, Shahbaz. Paul wanted Shahbaz to leave too; Shahbaz wanted Paul to return. “He was trying to convince me to return to Pakistan because of the dire and pressing needs of the community, while I was arguing with him that he should move to Europe because his very life was in danger. Shahbaz was no stranger to death threats by men who despised his religion and his work on behalf of the helpless. Looking back, I realize I was arguing from a rational and human perspective with a man whose gaze was fixed on Heaven.” Paul was begging Shahbaz to leave Pakistan, but he was insistent on staying and doing what he could to helping others. One friend recalls a young girl who was raped, whom no one else would help because she came from a Christian family.

Shahbaz Bhatti stayed, explaining that, as Paul recounted, “he had surrendered his life into Jesus’ hands and would follow Jesus until his last breath.” During their last conversation, in which Shahbaz urged his brother to come home, Paul replied, “You are calling me to leave paradise for hell.” Shahbaz insisted: “The road leading to paradise starts in Pakistan.”

Shahbaz was murdered in March 2011, while serving as minister for minority affairs. “His determination to stop all kinds of injustices and to protect the oppressed and marginalized communities cost him his life,” his brother explains.

Paul’s reaction was the natural one. “The news of Shahbaz’s murder shook me to the core. I was devastated, disheartened, and furious all at the same time. I immediately flew to Pakistan to attend my brother’s funeral. My intention was to retrieve members of my family and move them to safety in Italy and Canada, and say farewell to Pakistan forever. My conviction, at that moment, was that Pakistan was unworthy of the services of my family.”