Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Jane Brody fails to deliver, and other, unrelated, news

Former Broadviewian Will Baude responds to my post at UChiBLOGo on Randel's visit to that most distinguished of dormitories.

Jane Brody had the audacity to write a "Personal Health" column without so much as mentioning herself, her family, or her friends.

Matthew Yglesias wonders why a conservative blogger thinks the ACLU is a Jewish organization. Thing is, the conservative blogger he quotes only appears convinced that the organization is run by Jews. But Matt's point holds: From an anti-Semitic perspective, a Jewish-run but technically areligious organization is far more suspect than is an openly Jewish one, and even institutions not actually run by Jews make just as good targets as ones that are--who cares that the ACLU is really just the American Civil Liberties Union, without a cabal of Jews directing the action (or, to be fair to all, that the Bush administration is run primarily by non-Jews)? Even if the ACLU were an explicitly Christian organization, an anti-ACLU anti-Semite would accuse the organization of being under the covert control of Jews. Another possibility: Maybe the dude just got ADL and ACLU confused. Sure, he mentions both, but to make his point, he feels he must provide a list. He knows he doesn't like either, is typing quickly, and mixes things up. This is much like what Rashid Khalidi did during his interview with New York Magazine--when enumerating what he perceives of as being largely Jewish suburbs of NYC, he included Long Island City in the list. Long Island City is not a posh suburb but is in fact a part of NYC itself, in Queens, one of the so-called outer boroughs, but is fairly close to Manhattan. Long Island City is nothing like Scarsdale, I've never heard it referred to as being a particular feeder neighborhood to Columbia, but Khalidi presumably thought "Long Island" and "City" and thought, "Jews!"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Long Island City? I know Long Island City. My mom taught at Steinway Junior high. It was full of Greeks, Turks, and Italians, but the Greeks had the best food.