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The Scroll

Bringing Back “Self-Hating Jew”

A guide for the perplexed.

By Irin Carmon|June 14, 2012 2:30 PM|24comments
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The best thing about political discourse is when parties accuse one another of silencing! When it comes to the state of Israel and the Jews, we’re now at epic levels of meta-silencing accusations. Over at the Jerusalem Post,Isi Leibler has one bone to pick in particular: The decline of Jews accusing other Jews of hating themselves.

“[O]ne of the most effective accomplishments chalked up by political far-left activists was their success in eliminating the term “self-hating Jew” from the Jewish political lexicon. They are abetted by those from the extreme Right who indiscriminately label every Jewish critic of Israeli policy a self-hating Jew.  Today, anyone employing the term “self-hating” in relation to Jews is summarily condemned and accused of being chauvinistic.”

Let’s just be grateful it’s a bipartisan effort.

Leibler takes care to note that the revived term “should be employed in a highly selective manner and not utilized indiscriminately against naïve, well-meaning ‘bleeding hearts’ or legitimate critics of Israeli policies with whom we may disagree.” That sounds eminently reasonable.  The only problem is, who gets to decide who’s a self-hating Jew and who’s just a critic of Israeli policies when Leibler is busy? Or in another time zone?

I tried to glean what I could from the column. Herewith, a list:

Self Haters:

  • “Haaretz, which is probably the most important global media platform promoting the rantings of Jews demonizing Israel.”
  • “Karl Marx… [whose] noxious self-hatred was the basis for his vile anti-Semitic tract Zur Judenfrage.”
  • “In the Soviet Union, the members of the Yevsektsia.”
  • “Western Jewish communists.”
  • “In Israel, the fellow-traveling members of Mapam, the forerunner of Meretz.”
  • Former Israeli musician Gilad Atzmon who justifies the Nazi murder of the Jews, [and] failed politician Avram Burg who delegitimizes his country.”
  • “Journalists who paved the way for the Goldstone Report and charges of war crimes against Israel by demonizing the IDF, while defending the intransigent and duplicitous Palestinians.”
  • “Some Diaspora Jews, ugly blemishes on the fringes of Jewish communities throughout the world, who stand at the vanguard of the anti-Israeli pack.”

 

Not Self-Haters:

  • We’ll get back to you.

 

Candidly Speaking: Concerning “Self-Hating Jews” [JPost]

 
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  • Natan79

    None of those Isi Leibler are self-hating Jews. Similarly to Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, which Tablet Magazine likes, all those people cited by Leibler hate or hated OTHER Jews while loving themselves very much. 

  • paul.brandon

    A ‘self hating Jew’ is any Jew who disagrees with me.
    A term we can do without.  If I wanted to play word games I could make a case that anyone who uses the term is an example of it himself.

  • http://twitter.com/alrf37 andrew r

    Self-hating Jew is of course a euphemism for Jewish anti-semite, and other implications probably include judenrat and kapo.  Why self-hating?  Because it’s a mental illness, and hating yourself is like, totally mental, man.  Of course, we could go into the nasty things about Jews written by Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Arthur Ruppin, but while that material is worth going over, I’m not sure it’s necessary to respond like that.  Nevermind that it’s childish to go, “oh yeah?  The real self-hating Jews are these guys,” it’s just a dumb label that shouldn’t be dignified with an answer.

    For that matter, if someone of Jewish background is an anti-semite, it would be  simplistic, intellectually barbaric, even, to label them a self-hater.  As if there’s no social process behind such thoughts and they just formed out of the void.

  • Jacob Arnon

    A self hating Jew is a Jew who hates other Jews. He or she doesn’t usually hate themselves.

  • Jacob Arnon

    “A ‘self hating Jew’ is any Jew who disagrees with me.”

    Wrong, Paul. He hates other Jews. Do you hate other Jews?

  • PhillipNagle

    How about former Nazi stooge George Soros who has financed Israel hating K Street.  Obvviously Soros is trying to finish the work of his former Nazi bosses.

  • gwhepner

    WHY DO WE NON-HEATHENS HATE

     

    Why do many critics hate

    devotedly destroying?

    Is is destined as their fate

    to be thus annoying?

    Why do many people care

    what critics have to say?

    It may be they’re too scared to dare

    and feel they must obey

    what critics say. Could that be why

    they welcome criticism?

    I do wish I could make them die

    by means of witticism

    causing them to split their sides,

    with laughter, thus frustrating,

    while upbraiding their broadsides,

    all Jews who are self-hating.

    gwhepner@yahoo.com

     

  • yevka

     I completely agree Paul. If Jacob didn’t wield this hackneyed phrase with such wild unfocused abandon like a crazed curmudgeon he wouldn’t have a flimsy leg to stand on.

  • yevka

     Phil, you’re financed by that mentally melted down nut Glenn Beck so what are you getting at tiger?

  • PhillipNagle

    If you can’t reply facts I suppose name calling is the next best thing.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4J7SJXBLRPOWLZNZXFWEILRCMU David Z

    Jacob argued with God. Abraham  tried to bargain with God. Hutzpah? No. Just classical Jewish use of reason to balance faith.
    Were they self-hating Jews ? To some. yes….

    Job had some very harsh things to say, Ecclesiastes termed much of religion-bunk
    and yet they are part of our Bible. Self-haters too?

     I subscribe to Haaretz. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I do not.
    But it is a stimulating paper unlike the dreary Yisrael Hayom  daily  which is Bibi’s Pravda.
    Not self hating by the criteria cited….

  • corey949

    It is very clear to me that the primary use of the epithet “self-hating Jew” is to silence anyone who disagrees with the wielder of the term.

  • Jacob Arnon

    Of course you agree, Yevka.

    Whether you are Jewish or not you hate other Jews and it shows in almost every post you scribble. 

  • Jacob Arnon

    “Self-hating Jew is of course a euphemism for Jewish anti-semite, and other implications probably include judenrat and kapo.”
    It wasn’t always a euphemism but a fact. 

    There is an important scholarly study on the subject:

    http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Self-Hatred-Anti-Semitism-Hidden-Language/dp/0801840635/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339954953&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Jewsih+self+hatred 

    I suggest people who want to know its long history should read the book.

    btw: every monority has people who find it hard to live as a minority and decide to join the majority by claiming that they are really not part of the minority and in order to prove come up with heinous charges against their own ethnic group. 

    Hence there are self hating-Blacks, self-hating- Gays, self hating women, self hating Orientals, and of course self hating Jews. 

    It’s not complicated, people. 
     

  • Jacob Arnon

    There is an important scholarly study on the subject:
    http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-S… 
    I suggest people who want to know its long history should read the book.
    btw: every monority has people who find it hard to live as a minority and decide to join the majority by claiming that they are really not part of the minority and in order to prove come up with heinous charges against their own ethnic group. 
    Hence there are self hating-Blacks, self-hating- Gays, self hating women, self hating Orientals, and of course self hating Jews. 
    It’s not complicated, people. 

  • Jacob Arnon

    Who has called you “a self hating Jew” in order to silence you?

  • corey949

    I did not use a first-person pronoun. Point is, Jews from Spinoza to Hannah Arendt to Phillip Roth to Peter Breitbart have been accused of self-hate as Jews anytime they’ve said something that the accuser disagreed with or found offensive or decided was “bad for the Jews..” In this case, I use the verb “to silence” somewhat metaphorically. A more literal choice might be “to discredit” or “to dismiss”

  • corey949

    “it’s not complicated, people”

    Having just followed the link you thoughtfully provided, I’ve spent the last hour browsing through Dr. Gilman’s quite complicated book. (Thanks to Amazon’s “look inside!” feature.) I’ll definitely read the whole thing at some point. But Gilman’s take on “Jewish Self-Hatred” is informed by decades of nuanced, historical, literary, medical and psychological research and learning. There’s nothing uncomplicated about it. After all, according to his bio, ” Gilman’s focus is on medicine and the echoes of its rhetoric in social and political discourse. In particular, Gilman investigates the constellations of medical, social, and political discourse that emerge at certain historical junctures.

  • corey949

    “it’s not complicated, people”

    Having just followed the link you thoughtfully provided, I’ve spent the last hour browsing through Dr. Gilman’s quite complicated book. (Thanks to Amazon’s “look inside!” feature.) I’ll definitely read the whole thing at some point. But Gilman’s take on “Jewish Self-Hatred” is informed by decades of nuanced, historical, literary, medical and psychological research and learning. There’s nothing uncomplicated about it. After all, according to his bio, ” Gilman’s focus is on medicine and the echoes of its rhetoric in social and political discourse. In particular, Gilman investigates the constellations of medical, social, and political discourse that emerge at certain historical junctures.

  • Jacob Arnon

    Corey tries to mislead:

    corey949Collapse”It is very clear to me that the primary use of the epithet “self-hating Jew” is to silence anyone who disagrees with the one who wields it.”You said it is very clear to you. Normally when I say something is very clear to me that means that I have first hand knowledge .Now you say:”I did not use a first-person pronoun.”This a little too precious to take seriously. Then you say:”Point is, Jews from Spinoza to Hannah Arendt to Phillip Roth to Peter Breitbart have been accused of self-hate…..”This list is pretty uneven. Breitbart? Did you mean Beinart?  doesn’t belong in the company of a Roth much less of a Spinoza. Spinoza has been held by many leading Jews (like Ben Gurion) to be a a great Jewish figure.  You may not know this but he endorsed the idea of a Jewish State (as did Rousseau–a non Jew).Hannah Arendt has said and written some pretty foolish things about the Holocaust but no one with any standing in the Jewish community has accused her of “self hatred.”  Gershom Sholem had said that she lacked Ahavat Israel which means in this context a close connection to the Jewish people which happens to be true. Yet Arendt donated money to the Jewish Defense League which is safe to say is not your (nor mine) favorite organization. It is safe to say also that Arendt was great scholar but quite confused on ordinary political issues. Philip Roth has received many awards from Jews  and is regarded as a great Jewish writer. Any one can call anyone Jew “self hating.” It only matters when such name calling leads to some kind punishment. These days so called “self hating” Jews are doing very well. You, Sir, are wrong. 

  • Jacob Arnon

    Browsing a book online and reading it are not the same thing.

    You seem to already have decided not to take Prof. Gilman’s study seriously. 

    What does that say about you?

  • wjre

    There’s a list on the internet called the  S*H*I*T list - self-hating Israel somethings (can’t remember what the T stands for).  It’s very comprehensive.  There are so, so many.  It’s really very depressing and bizarre.  It’s almost uniquely a Jewish phenomenon too.  Are there any Chinese out there that are singling out Chinese human rights violations?

  • wjre

    Here’s a link to a great website which documents prominent self-hating Israel threatening Jews.

    http://www.focusonfacts.com/downloads/PDFs/Zionists_SHIT_List.pdf

    It’s very depressing.  Look at it and see if this is not a real phenomenon.

  • http://twitter.com/alrf37 andrew r

    That book has no merit if it doesn’t cover the auto-antisemitism of well-known Zionist figures (The above-mentioned Herzl and Ruppin, also Nordau, Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion, et. al).

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Bringing Back “Self-Hating Jew”

A guide for the perplexed.

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