Old, Gifted, and Got Into Harvard

Michael Winerip went to Harvard. I could be wrong, but I don't think he'd mind at all if I were to help him spread the word.

Winerip's article is in part about how his own kids won't go to Harvard because they "were not made that way." Pshaw! "Even my oldest, who is my most academic son, did not quite have the class rank or the SATs. His SAT score was probably 100 points too low — though it was identical to the SAT score that got me in 35 years ago."

Then there are the twins. Oh, the twins!

"That day, running on the beach, I was lost in my thoughts when a voice startled me. 'Pops, hey, Pops!' It was Sammy, one of my twins, who’s probably heading for a good state school. He was in his wetsuit, surfing alone in the 30-degree weather, the only other person on the beach. 'What a day!' he yelled, and his joy filled my heart."

Lest any other of Winerip's family members go un-patronized, I leave you with this:

"My wife’s two brothers struggled as students at mainstream colleges and both have made wonderful full lives, one as a salesman, the other as a builder. Each found his own best path. Each knows excellence."

What he Said

On a break from writing about orientalism I found this.

In defense of the indefensible

Fashion magazines give women unrealistic expectations about weight. Models are very thin, and women in the media generally are significantly thinner than women on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, and perhaps the same girth as those on Manhattan's West Broadway. This is nothing new.

While it's by no means a zero-sum situation, it seems that the more weight matters in terms of beauty, the less race is an issue. There are fashion models of a whole range of ethnicities, but it's a sort of one-of-every-color of one identical mold. For all the discussion of "ethnic" women and their curves (this can refer to black women, Latinas, or anyone remotely dark-haired and Mediterranean), there is no ethnicity in which a modelesque physique predominates, other than those ethnicities under rather severe oppression from other ethnicities. Beauty has become something of a free-for-all for those willing to skip lunch.

So should we rejoice over the newfound turn against slimness as a beauty ideal? With what, one wonders, will we replace it? A look at the preeminent (if no longer so famous?) plus-size model, Emme, could be a guide.

(I know I've written about this before, but don't remember when/where, so apologies for being repetitive.)

Assimilation

As an secular American Jew and aspiring scholar* of Jews of the Gallic persuasion, the word "assimilation" comes up all the time. 19th century French Jews were encouraged to assimilate. German Jews in the 1930s, as well as French Jews at that time, were too obsessed with assimilation and thus couldn't defend themselves when it mattered most. Algerian Jews did not assimilate as much as French Jews would have liked, but a lot of good it did them and all that. American Jews today are too assimilated. We must fight assimilation! No, we must encourage assimilation! Bah!

That about summarizes the Jewish-assimilation debates. But it seems to me that the word "assimilation" gets misused. It is used to refer to two separate phenomena that should not both be termed "assimilation." One is the process by which individual Jews or Jewish communities go from insular/traditional/observant to blending in with whichever predominantly non-Jewish society they live in. That, I would argue, is assimilation. The second thing called assimilation is the existence of Jews today who are not sufficiently (to some) insular/traditional/observant. As in, a Jew who does not care about Shabbat is an "assimilated Jew." No matter how many generations secular, a Jew today who eats bacon is "assimilated." This is where "assimilation" gets misused. In this usage, it implies some sort of base state of Judaism, from which all divergences must be measured. It implies that all people who are Jews begin at a 100%-Jewish point of origin, from which they stray, at will, to such and such extent. It implicates people in a process to which they are personally unrelated, and in which they had no choice. For many Jews in 2007, even in 1907, a "return" to Judaism would have been the active choice, and assimilation the default.

So why, if these individuals are not to be referred to as "assimilated," but are instead boring old Americans, French people, or cosmopolitan types, do I insist on calling them Jews? I would call a Jew anyone who a) is in any way affected, positively, negatively, or neutrally, by the outside world believing him to be Jewish, and b) either actively affirms or fails to reject this assessment of his identity. This is a (close) variant of my former professor Menachem Brinker's definition of a Jew as one who is seen as a Jew and sees himself as one, the only difference being it puts a bit more of an emphasis on those who have good reason to stop thinking of themselves as Jews, do not care about things Jewish, yet persist in identifying as such.

*If Arden Wohl gets "aspiring filmmaker," I want "aspiring scholar"--it's simultaneously more glamorous and more tragic than "graduate student." And, speaking of marginal socialites who are also artists, is the fact that Ahn Duong is the celebrity I see around the city the most frequently in itself proof of the Sartrian existentialist concept of absurdity? This also ties in with the argument put forth in the "Jon Voight's car" episode of "Seinfeld," in which it's pointed out that someone would be more likely to say that a car they're trying to sell used to belong to a minor celebrity than a major one, since that's somehow more believable. Oh yes.

Knowing how the story ends

Lately I've been in a kind of bad mood. I attributed this to finals, to the tough transition from quarters to semesters and the increase in endurance this demands, to either too much or not enough coffee, or perhaps to a general, classically grad-school feeling of malaise. Assuming I see enough dachshunds and eat enough pastries, I'm generally a happy person, so I was starting to wonder what was up.

Then it hit me: my job, at the moment and indefinitely, is reading about France and Jews, and wherever the two overlap. Specifically, I'm now reading about North African Jews during decolonization and French Jews during Vichy. This is extremely depressing stuff. While I find these subjects fascinating, if you spend a full work-day and then some reading about persecution, oppression, torture, genocide, and low-level but pervasive social exclusion, you're bound to feel a bit, well, off when the day is done. I've been interested in these subjects for a while, but it's only now, with two term papers on them coming due, that I'm spending quite this much time on these subjects, without so many sanity-retrieving breaks for things like astrophysics lab or trips to H&M.

I don't take these readings personally, in the sense that I am most definitely not French or Algerian, do not live in the mid-20th century, and these are history books and novels, not soap operas. I'm not reading all this because I identify with it in some direct and obvious way. Sometimes it seems to me that being a New York Jew might have as much in common with being an urban European Jew as with being an American Jew more generally, but I couldn't say for sure, and I don't believe this is my main reason for finding these subjects so intriguing. In any case, the latest out of Bobst, Albert Memmi's 1962 "Portrait of a Jew," is a prose, humorless "Portnoy's Complaint," brilliant but not exactly uplifting.

The long road to finals week

-Someone named Zack Hill has a fun article in the Chicago Maroon about being a UChicagoan New Yorker in Paris.

-Today was the Israel Independence Day party in Washington Square Park. It was not all that well-attended by the time I arrived, but to be fair, many Zionists probably have class between 2:30 and 6. I know I do. At 4:30 or so, the Hebrew-bracelet stand was out of aleph, yod, and gimel, making it hard for those of us who wanted to make name bracelets using these letters to do so. I am now the proud owner of a dental-floss bracelet that says, "Cherzl," because I could not find a hay, either. There was, however, loud (if, alas, recorded) Israeli music, some of which I do not own, and some of which, strangely, was in French. A bit later on, some guys wearing keffiyehs and one draped in a Palestinian flag showed up. Unless one has occurred since, no brawl took place.

-Salad for lunch is a great idea in theory but inevitably leads to lunch #2. Not time-efficient, nor an outcome likely to be advocated in French Women Don't Get Fat. Which I have not read.

-I'm one down, two to go, in terms of papers. The one I wrote is on Sartre, the ones remaining are on French Jews during Vichy and Algerian Jews during TBD.

-Argh!

The idiocy of "parental consent"

David Brooks finds babies adorable, thinks fetuses are kind of like babies, and bemoans the fact that pro-choicers don't dwell on the baby-ness of the unborn. David Brooks also, if I remember correctly from the ancient days when I last gave sufficient thought to contemporary American politics, wishes women would start massive families right out of college, stay home for a good while, then return to the workforce in middle age. This would make it harder for women to, among other things, write op-eds for the Times. Furthermore, David Brooks will never, ever, be pregnant, and his days of impregnating others may well also be over, although I don't know him personally, so who knows. The point is that the "central concern," the "facts in the womb," are only concerns or factual to those who are pro-life, who believe that a potential person is a person. I've written on this before and have nothing new to say other than that it's worth repeating.

But most importantly: part of Brooks's "sensible solution" is that abortion should be allowed only "with parental consent for minors." This concept is one I will never, ever, understand. Shouldn't the default be a 15-year-old not having a baby? Sure, there are women who regret their abortions (dealt with quite well here), but how many 22-year-olds are wishing, at any given moment, they were at home with their 9-year-olds and not at school or work? Who is legally or morally responsible for the child a girl's parents demanded she give birth to? If the girl is old enough to know better and all that, why'd she need parental approval? If the parents are held responsible, what if they wanted the girl to abort--should girls need parental permission to give birth? Why should a girl be forced to give birth and then give a child up for adoption when a woman, under the same circumstances could legally and with David Brooks's approval avoid that situation entirely?

"Unstable personalities"

Someone left a comment to my post about gun control leading me to James Q. Wilson's LA Times op-ed arguing that "gun control isn't the answer." What is?

"The main lesson that should emerge from the Virginia Tech killings is that we need to work harder to identify and cope with dangerously unstable personalities."

Brilliant idea! Let's think about this in terms of rights. The right to bear arms is sacred. So sacred, in fact, that it must supersede the right to write a violent play, to be socially awkward, and to not greet everyone on campus with an inviting grin. It's amazing to me how much emphasis the media is placing on the Virginia Tech killer's obscene and violent plays. I thought it was morally ambiguous for even therapists, who are hearing what their patients actually think, to turn them in to the authorities on suspicion of having strange thoughts. But can students, adult college students, now be suspect on account of creative writing? Shouldn't there be at least some acknowledgment that the writing on its own wouldn't have said anything, that what's really at stake was this man's stalking people, etc.? Isn't it a bit more fair, not to mention practical, to remove guns from this nation's civilians, than to take everything students write in playwriting courses literally, or than to convince college students that their quiet roommates are potential murderers? Now, rather than those with guns losing out, anyone who fails to strike everyone around them as "normal" will. Not a good situation.

Life imitating art

My work for the day has been reading Sartre's La Nausee. I read Nausea for a philosophy class in college, so this is sort of a reread. Anyway, time had come for a break from the existential queasiness, so I met Jo for dinner at a French cafe in Cobble Hill which shall remain nameless on the off-chance that it fixes the problem. What problem? We'd just ordered, had water and bread, were waiting for our food, listening to the French people next to us chatting... when all of a sudden one of the most giant roaches I've ever seen, wings spread as if about to soar, zipped across the wall our table was up against. I was not so happy, and inadvertently pushed the French woman next to me several feet over while attempting to leap out of my seat. Someone else at a table near by said there were in fact two. I announced that we were leaving. The French man seemed amused, the French woman seemed annoyed, and an elderly American man announced that he, too, wanted to leave. Our waitress told us to speak to the manager, who stepped outside with us, had me explain exactly what (I included the requisite hand display of the size of the creature in question) and where (table by the wall). He asked us what we planned to do about it. All my usual meekness in situations of confrontation disappeared. I explained that we were leaving, that it was disgusting. He wasn't thrilled, but accepted that this was the inevitable fallout from what we'd witnessed.

Sartre would have found this story and its predictable ending too cheesily bourgeois (fromagement bourgeois?). But that's the way it went.

Yes it is

In the New Republic, Sasha Zimmerman wonders about "Generation Columbine," those who were teens at the time of the Columbine shootings: "What does the world look like to a generation who has grown up with the frightful knowledge that killers can lurk in classrooms? I doubt their first concern is gun control."

Speaking as a 23-year-old, one who well remembers the jokes about "warning signs" and "trench coat mafias" (rendered absurd at a high school where trench-coat types were the rule), I'd have to say my first concern is gun control. This and other exhortations to give a "proper" pause before thinking about the Virginia Tech massacre in terms of gun control are horrible manipulations of the notion of grief. Everyone acknowledges that this was an incomprehensibly tragic event, but aside from those directly involved, few should be so overcome by personal grief that they cannot calmly think of what could be done to prevent such things from happening. It is disingenuous--not to mention unfair to those who are actually, personally, grieving--to suggest that those far from Virginia Tech, whose near-immediate response to hearing about the shootings is that guns need to go, are insensitive people preoccupied by political agendas, while those who refuse to denounce guns refuse to do so because they really care. I am advocating gun control now because this event is extremely upsetting; as neither I nor anyone I know is a victim, I do not see a reason to "let blood dry" before worrying about prevention--in that time, another such event might occur.

Upcoming events

1) There will be another Dachshund Octoberfest this Saturday in Washington Square Park.

2) Also in the Park, next Tuesday, will be the Israeli Independence Day party.

3) There is a chance that I will, at some point, leave my apartment. Only after finishing the Sartre re-read, and probably just to dump some garbage, but it might happen all the same!

Missing the point

The beyond-obvious response to yesterday's tragic massacre (redundant, I realize) is gun control. First for the general population, then ideally for cops, too. New York-centric Utopianism? Perhaps, but it's the only way to prevent people with murderous inclinations from accidentally killing, at the very least, an extra dozen people. We cannot create a murder-free society, but a massacre-free one is an entirely reasonable goal.

The way to prevent such events from occurring is not to give a long portrait, as the New York Times does, of the gunman as a "loner." The crime in question was not, and should not be associated with, such "strange" behavior as eating alone in the dining hall, downloading music of all genres, failing to make eye contact with someone running for student council, or not having a girlfriend. By all accounts, Cho pre-massacre was a whole lot like 99% of students at the University of Chicago, none of whom, to my knowledge, have shown up one day and shot 32 of their classmates. It's absurd that the crime is portrayed as resulting from the gunman's not being gregarious, rather than from the fact that he was a) a murderer, and b) one living in a country that makes it far too easy to get a gun. Stigmatize guns before stigmatizing solitude. It just makes sense.

Israel vs. Belgium, according to guidebooks:

Israelis are happy to spend a whole night drinking just one beer. Belgium, known for its beer, is not as drunken as other beer-drinking lands, because Belgians savor the beverage. Not sure if I believe either, but anyway...

Tel Aviv is named after the city in Theodor Herzl's Altneuland. Antwerp might mean "hand-throwing."

In Israel, you might get attacked on account of being in Israel, but chances are slim. In Belgium, if you're dressed in an identifiably Jewish way and turn the wrong corner in Antwerp, someone might Vlaams Blok you out of commission, but again, chances are slim. Relatedly...

Belgium is known for its suicide rate; Israel for its suicide bombings. But it's not all bad! Because...

Israel is filled with tanned, fit women in bikinis and sexy gun-carrying types of both sexes. Belgium is filled with the world's best chocolate and fries. No country could be both these things. And finally...

Israel is divided into two ethnic groups which, though they look alike and have not entirely dissimilar histories, are not too fond of each other. Same goes for Belgium.

Even when the French-Jewish studies stop for like five seconds, the learning goes on...

From the 'life isn't fair' department

Frank Rich has all sorts of things to say about the Imus debacle, although as someone who hadn't heard of Imus prior to said debacle, I'm not all that interested. What is interesting is his citation of, "My 22-year-old son, a humor writer who finds Imus an anachronistic and unfunny throwback to the racial-insult humor of the Frank Sinatra-Sammy Davis Jr. Rat Pack ilk..." The words "humor writer" link to this article in the New Yorker by one Simon Rich. I hadn't noticed the name when I originally read it, just found it remarkably unfunny, even by Chicago Maroon standards, which are not, as it happens, New Yorker standards. I love how Rich mentions that his son is 22, as though to show what a prodigy he is, already writing for the New Yorker at that age!

Justice indeed. This is a country of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton(?), and one where the commonly-held assumption that meritocracy matters leads New Yorker readers to believe that this Simon Rich who wrote an article they're reading got where he is because he's just that much more talented than everyone else who wouldn't mind a piece in the New Yorker. Life isn't fair, which is fine, but it's when we assume it is that things begin to crumble.

A long way from Chicago

Everyone in my apartment (except one tired and probably now-annoyed roommate) is now arguing about Niels Bohr. Such is life.

Proof that Zionism ruined Judaism

Ah, Israel, the land of Jewish athleticism, Jewish militarism, Jews doing things other than (ahem) staying inside all day in somewhere like, say, Brooklyn, reading scholarly texts and checking their email. Looks like the Zionists are not content bringing Jewry of Muscle to the Holy Land: I was just invited to an event, via facebook, called JUMP FOR ISRAEL!

Jump for Israel: SKYDIVING!! - Come skydiving to raise money for Friends of the IDF, an organization dedicated to supporting Israeli soldiers. We'll be paying a great discounted price of $165.

In addition, we're asking that each participant raise $100 in pledges as a donation to Friends of the IDF.

The jump will take place on Long Island--we'll provide transportation. To look up the place visit, www.skydivelongisland.com.

Email Rob (rms313@nyu.edu) or Dave (djs326@nyu.edu) to reserve your spot and receive a pledge sheet.

HURRY! Space is limited!

The words "discounted price" and "Long Island" do appear, so stereotypes are not entirely absent, but still. Is this what the Jewish people has come to?

Going to the movies pays off

I felt guilty taking two hours out of an otherwise productive week to watch a movie about, among other things, a woman bleaching some carpet to match some drapes. That said, it was worthwhile, as I am now famous.

In other news of my fame (limited, in comparison to some of my former classmates), my article in the Jewish Quarterly, which seems not to be available in the U.S., is out in paper but not (yet?) online; when it is I'm assuming it'll be here.

Passing

Ariel Beery pins the tendency of left-wing Jewish communities to self-destruct on Jews' having made "the Holocaust as the pinnacle event of Jewish history." I'm going to agree with him, for the most part, and take it a step further, or maybe just a step more specific:

Last night I saw "Black Book," a movie about a Dutch Jewish woman who, through luck, cleverness, and sex appeal that melts the heart of many a Nazi, survives World War II and ends up in Israel, which we all know is a country in which no Jew will ever be killed on account of being Jewish. (At least not by the state, which is something, but not, alas, everything). In other cheeriness, one of the movie's messages is that everyone hates the Jews, from the Resistance to the Nazis. In fact, those who are seemingly kindest to Jews may well hate them the most, yet the Nazis are, of course, Nazis. No-win, indeed.

The more striking, all-encompassing aspect of this movie, as with the similar "Europa Europa," is that it is advantageous for a Jew to be able to "pass." While you're obviously not supposed to agree with an ideology that would have a man killed for not having a foreskin or a woman killed for having dark hair, you nevertheless root for the protagonists of both these movies to succeed in appearing "Aryan." That early-mid-20th century European Jews did, often enough, blend in with their non-Jewish neighbors, was why the Holocaust required so much paperwork and investigation to carry out. It seems we do not, after all, have horns.

The problem with these movies, as fascinating as they are, is that American Jews see enough such scenarios, and after a certain point begin to associate survival with a Jewishness that is visually imperceptible. When someone tells me I don't look Jewish (some say I do, some say I don't) there's a certain sense of this being a relief, not in the sense of this making me more attractive, but in this less obvious notion of it meaning I'd have been able to "pass" if need be. To ask a blunt question: if Holocaust education weren't so central to Jewish learning, and if the passing-for-survival narrative weren't all over the place, would so many American Jews today get nose jobs? (And are Israelis so much better-looking than American Jews not simply because they are more ethnically mixed, but because they do not, by and large, try to look something other than their own ethnicity?) In any case, plans for things like restructuring Jewish communal life and hoping for less intermarriage are, I would say, missing the point.

What's the opposite of "bringing sexy back"?

I'm really tired, but I think "Personal Health" columnist Jane Brody just wrote a column about why the elderly would benefit from "[t]he use of lubricants and a dildo." We now officially live in a society that's too open about sex for sex to be sexy, and must resort to moss-like reproduction using spores.

Why it might be time to chuck the Sitemeter:

It's nice to know that someone in Hungary got to this blog by searching for 'theodore herzl gonorrhea.' As it happens, I have no idea, but I wouldn't worry about getting it from him at this point.

Recent excitement

1) A man on the bus in Brooklyn believed my mother and me to be sisters. Not the first time this has happened. Then it was that I'm clearly the mother and my mother the daughter, adding a whole new dimension to the whole "Jewish-babies" discussion, in that I've apparently already had one, before even myself being born. Not even the most ultra of the ultra-orthodox could beat that. The man then began discussing his abscess and how it needed to be drained. No segue or anything. Brooklyn-bus-avoidance: yet another reason to hope for a less snowy rest of April.

2) My mother and I fully exploited (in the inoffensive sense) all that gentrified Brooklyn has to offer. We got Belgian lunch, American Apparel, and Lebanese groceries. I noticed that some marzipan Easter candy was marked "Parve," suggesting that I'm not the only Jew to appreciate the culinary aspects of the upcoming Christian holiday. Easter strikes me as infinitely more appealing than Christmas, the holiday Jewish children supposedly yearn to embrace. Who needs a tree when you have permission to play with matches for eight whole nights? But in the chocolate eggs vs. horseradish contest (a sort of interfaith Latke-Hamentash debate), the winner is self-evident.

3) This evening, I had to leave a talk a bit early at which one of the panelists was either a founder or the founder of the "gender" approach to history, a talk largely about feminism and women's roles and such, due to some pressing difficulties involving my laundry, which, if not dealt with immediately, would have led to me losing my clothing. Not a petty concern, not a dire emergency, but nevertheless ironic.

4) This made my week. Depending how you and your officemates feel about German children's music, you might want to turn off your computer's volume before hitting play. But then you'll kind of miss the point. Headphones, then...

Silliest article ever

Note that it's from April 2, not 1.

Theoretically brilliant

Once again, The Bell Curve co-author Charles Murray flatters Jo, discussing "the level of intelligence that can permit people to excel in fields like theoretical physics and pure mathematics." This time, rather than complaining that too many idiots go to college, he explains why Jews--Ashkenazi ones, to be specific--are totally brilliant. As if we didn't know! Seems our I.Q.s peak at 110, not 100 like the Gentiles and the Sephardim (who we all know aren't real Jews anyway; any heritage that doesn't allow you to truly "get" Woody Allen, that doesn't mandate consumption of gefilte fish, doesn't count). All of this does little to explain the percentage of minutes in the day I ponder what next to purchase at Sephora. (Please let there not be a "JAP" gene).

For a change, French Jews

I'm a fan of anything that helps answer the question of how to go about studying French Jews from a literary perspective. Allison Schachter's Haaretz review of Hana Wirth-Nesher's "Call it English - The Languages of Jewish-American Literature" has convinced me to track down this book and somehow read it along with the three others I'm currently in the middle of (to say nothing of attempts at relearning Hebrew and learning Dutch). As I've been told now twice, I really do need to learn Yiddish. And not just the Dutch-Hebrew fusion that will result from my current "language studies" if they become studies without the quotes.

In other news, how uplifting.

La meme chose?

What makes German- and French-Jewish history different? The great thing about studying French Jews from within a French-French Studies program is that I now know a ton (but have, of course, an infinite way to go) about France generally, and thus have a better idea about where Jews, and minority groups generally, fit into French society at different points in that nation's history. However, my sense of what made and makes French Jews specifically French, what makes the French case different from others, is a bit blurry. Comparing the French and American cases is easiest, as I'm as aware as anyone about what it means to be an American Jew, and so when I learn about France, I can see what's the same and what's far from. But within Europe, things get confusing. I'm reading Amos Elon's The Pity of it All, about German Jews from Moses Mendelssohn's arrival in Berlin up to the rise of Nazism. Much that Elon says about the uniqueness of Germany, of the special ties Jews felt to Germany, of the whole "new Jerusalem"-type attitude about their new home, about a German-Jewish "symbiosis," real or imagined, could as easily be said about France. Do scholars with a particular interest in France or Germany, with reading abilities in French or German, simply conclude that their own case is the special one? Seems I have a ways to go in language/knowledge acquisition before I have even the slightest sense of what makes France different.

And that's just in the 18th and 19th centuries. How about the 20th? The more historians find about just how Nazi-like the Vichy regime really was, and just how similar French and German feelings were about Jews, the harder it is to see what, if anything, was fundamentally different.

And how about now? There's France, with its unique anti-Americanism. What could be more French? And yet, it sounds much the same in Germany.

So yeah, no real point to this post, other than to make clear that I do not have a clue.

The "new right"

From what I understand (or tried to, for a recent paper) the French have something like neoconservatism. It's quite a bit like the US variety, except that its proponents are more likely to be referred to as "philosophes" than "warmongerers;" proponents of both get called racist. Something else they have in common: according to this Haaretz story by Yair Sheleg (last name="snow"--I SO know Hebrew!), "A year ago, the weekly Nouvelle Observateur described him as one of the five outstanding intellectuals representing 'the new right' (three of them are Jews: Finkielkraut, Bernard-Henri Levy and Andre Glucksmann), the French parallel to the American neo-conservatives." Three out of five, huh.

It's struck me recently (as I'm sure it's struck others since these terms first appeared) that the terms "left" and "right" are as good as meaningless, at least outside the realm of economics, but perhaps even there. Left and right say nothing about how much government control of domestic life is sought or how much foreign intervention is acceptable. What political slant is a person who believes strongly in "Enlightenment/Western" values, is concerned with liberty and equality, and in favor of a race-blind society? "Classic-liberal-aka-neocon"? Or simply "Jew"?

Sheleg precedes a quote from a talk Finkielkraut gave in Tel Aviv by pointing out, "What he said may sound familiar to Israelis." The gist of this paper I not long ago handed in was that what Finkielkraut says, more generally, sounds awfully familiar to Americans, and would not raise eyebrows here.

I found this bit interesting:

Although he is a republican zealously devoted to the French national identity, Finkielkraut has been broadcasting a weekly program on the "sectarian" Jewish radio station "because it is hard to share concern for Israel with non-Jews. Israel, after all, is considered a regional power, and people don't understand this concern."

Here's where I get to the point of this post. The responses I get to what I write on Jewish subjects from Jewish readers claiming to speak for the "Jewish community" often strike me as knee-jerk and closed-minded. I sometimes wonder why bother? I disagree with people of this mindset on just about everything other than the need to defend Israel and Jews generally from a world that's less than enthused by our existence. I like plenty of things that fall under the category of "Jewish"--Israeli music, fashion, and actors; UChicago-inspired American Jewish fiction; French Jewish literature and history--but do not feel "among family" when at campus Jewish events, do not believe that I can truly connect better to Jews than non-Jews, and do not feel guilty when I realize that a High Holiday has come and gone and I had no idea. I do not believe that my less-than-orthodoxy would somehow save me should a new wave of anti-Semitism turn violent. Opinions aren't what are being attacked in such a context, anyhow.

I've realized what's going on. Commenters to my posts and I are talking past each other. I care about Israel and Jews generally because I am interested in liberty and, as a Jew, this particular form of liberty, the freedom to be Jewish, is one I have more of an understanding of than, say, the freedom to be gay. These commenters care about liberty because it's important to them to be Jews. I want those Jews who, through choice, outside definition, or both, "count," not to get persecuted on account of their Jewishness. They want more Jews, and more observant Jews. I believe in the right to be Jewish; they believe in Judaism.

These are two completely different worldviews. I will not go so far as to say that one way of seeing things is no better than the other--if I thought as much, I'd be undecided or indifferent--but without their position, one like mine would not exist, as there'd be no reason for it.

And I may be overstating my position a bit. I perfectly understand being concerned when it appears that an entire civilization is under attack. But, as Alain Finkielkraut pointed out in his Le Juif imaginaire, the damage on that front is done. Asking all who Hitler would have murdered to sacrifice their own freedom today in order to repair the damage (as if this were possible) is not necessarily a good thing.

Spawn!

Jewlicious, the other blog I write for, has a natalist streak which I periodically speak out against, only to receive strings of comments to my posts along the lines of, "But we need more Jewish babies." I must, as we say in academia, problematize this demand. Natalism--the belief that a given group must increase its population, not through immigration or conversion, but through reproduction--is hardly a Jew-specific phenomenon. Fears that there aren't enough Americans, or non-Muslim Europeans, or who knows which other groups, are also plenty popular, and my response works for all of these:

1) Reality: women are still far more responsible for child-rearing than are men. Asking for more babies of any given race or nationality is asking men and women of that group to pair off with fellow members; it is asking the women, above all, to take the time and make the physical committment to producing and raising these children. Earnest concerns about "our numbers" have historically led to restrictions on female reproductive rights.

2) Natalism dismisses as insignificant all contributions to society, other than that of babies, of women between the ages of, say, 18 to 40. The implication is that women do more for the good of (in this case) the Jewish people by making more Jewish people than by studying Jewish subjects, serving in the Israeli army or government, working in Jewish journalism, and so on. While women may certainly have careers and children, a philosophy of "the more, the better" leaves little time for much else. Would the Jewish people be better off with more of us but with half of us left back in the home?

3) Natalism is a creepy and unpleasant alternative to other methods of what is the quite reasonable goal of spreading ideas and practices you believe in to increasing numbers of people. Better conversion and immigration policies could "make" more Jews and Americans, respectively. If we look at Europe's divides as being about ideas, not some ridiculous notion of inborn tendencies to be progressive or backwards, then education and tolerance, not "more white babies," is the answer.

4) Any discussion of natalism has a way of getting personal. Commenters on Jewlicious have a) suggested I marry someone calling himself "Nathan," who'd left an earlier comment (this commenter asks if Nathan is single; my relationship status is apparently irrelevant), and b) referred to how young Jewish women do not want to have babies. Nowhere did I say that I am available to be married off to this Nathan, nor that I intend to remain childless. It's entirely consistent to be anti-natalist AND to have or hope to have children. Natalism isn't about having babies, but about having babies of a certain type, for a certain cause.

5) Asking that more of a certain type of baby be produced is wrong, but not nearly as wrong as asking that those of other groups be eliminated through sterilization or murder. Obviously. Thinking in terms of racial or national groups is necessary to a certain extent, insofar as one has a sense of reality, and insofar as people are often oppressed as members of racial or national groups by those on the outside, but such thinking should be kept to a minimum. More on that later--French-related duties await...

"Call me clueless"

Shmuley Boteach's article in the Jerusalem Post, "What are universities for?," is the silliest rendition of "kids today aren't like they used to be" that I've ever seen. It's the usual rant about how today's college students have too much fun and don't learn anything. Despite having been written by a rabbi and appearing in the JPost, there's nothing specifically Jewish about this most classic of conservative complaints:

"Thousands of young college students - all in their late teens and early 20s - were lounging on the sand. It was a sobering sight. The female students' beach attire was close to non-existent. Time was when the bikini was considered revealing. Today it is only for prudes and the modestly attired."

OK, he has a point. I remember college well, as it was quite recent for me, and it's true that at the University of Chicago, a bikini was considered far, far too modest.

"The simple fact is that the American campus is not a very healthy place and belies its description as a place of 'higher' education."

Can't argue with simple facts. But, since this college doesn't much resemble Chicago, I'm curious, which college in particular? Oh, I see, the one in I am Charlotte Simmons:

"Readers of [Charlotte Simmons] would scarcely believe the description of the American campus as a giant orgy filled with misogynistic men who harbor indescribable contempt for women and arrive on campus with the stated intention of bedding as many as possible. Less so would they believe the complicity with which women have joined in their own degradation."

What sort of reader of fiction would be so foolish as not to believe every last description in a novel as a fact about the real world setting on which it was based? Idiots.

Then, he explains that college seniors did worse--worse!--on a test than did college freshmen. Undeniable proof that college in fact makes you dumb! What was being tested? Boteach doesn't say. As one commenter points out, the test is probably on skills one uses in high school and not much later in life.

The end of the article is most informative:

"I now believe that parents should be looking at single-sex and religiously-inclined alternatives to the mainstream universities for their sons and daughters, schools that truly are about maturing, being educated and preparing for the mastery of both the professional and personal sectors.

I attended rabbinical college. There were no women. We were there to study, not socialize. When people ask me today how young rabbis have so much information, I tell them it has less to do with any kind of genius and more to do with the absence of socializing with the opposite sex."

Because of course it's either-or. Of all the doctoral students I know, not one engaged in college debauchery, nor had premarital sex. All follow strict, religion-based codes of ethics--acquired no doubt at single-sex religious undergrad schools--in their sexual behavior, and none would so much as consider getting drunk. That's how we, much like young rabbis, are able to "have so much information."

But my real reason for responding to this article, one which makes similar rants in places like National Review look brilliant, is this response, from the comments on Boteach's piece:

I'm not clueless
Sara Roth - USA
03/19/2007 22:56

Call me clueless but I'm still with the guy I hooked up with on Birthright. Only thing, he's not really Jewish so my parents are unhappy. But he's great. Birthright was the best thing I ever did. That guy said he won't send his daughter. Her loss. It's a safe nice environment to meet people and when you are a college kid, sex is part of it.

I have nothing to add.

James and the Giant Creek

I don't know quite how we got to talking about "Dawson's Creek" last night, but we did. I asked Jo what James Van Der Beek's (aka "Dawson") last name means. Van is from, der is the, so what's beek? Turns out beek is creek! So the star of "Dawson's Creek" is himself from the creek. Lama? Kacha.

First day "back"

Spring break is officially over, and the jetlag is unbearable. Spring break was sort of like the rest of the semester, but with more work, and with the chance to keep the hours I'm most happy with, i.e. getting up after noon. Well after noon.

Class this morning was at 9:45. Not once but twice, I skidded smoothly into the very same computer lab, whose slippery floors my not-so-well-heeled boots didn't quite know what to do with. Slid, but didn't fall. Might have waved my arms around a bit to keep my balance. I'd say I embarrassed myself immensely, but NYU is huge, and I didn't recognize anyone who was there either time, so not so much, now that I think of it.

Remarkably enough, I didn't crash until evening, when the normally loud and well-lit Think coffee bar became progressively dimmer. At night, Think becomes a wine and cheese bar, and thus requires a romantic atmosphere for the two couples on dates amidst maybe 40 other people there doing homework. My reading was going quite well until things got a bit more "romantic" and I had trouble keeping my eyes open, even with coffee and a brownie at the ready.

At that point I met up with Jo for our very own romantic date. Leaving both of our departments behind for a moment, we went to a talk hosted by the philosophy types, by Harry Frankfurt, Princeton philosopher and author of the book Bullshit. Intriguing! [Actually, it's On Bullshit--Thanks, Jo!]

His talk may not have been for real. He argued that the meaning of life is that we all want to live, and that no one seeks out death or harm for its own sake, that even the suicidal would rather live, but cannot because their will to avoid misery has taken over. Or something. Of course, the value of preserving human life above all else is one specific to certain times and places (cultures such as ours that value health and trans-fat-avoidance over honor won in many a duel; religions that put a premium on preservation of life and ones that are a bit more lax), but there was no question and answer session, despite the microphones, so who can say. There was, however, a good amount of wine and cheese, although I must say, the French department outdoes the Philosophy Department when it comes to fromage, as well it should.

After falling into a wine-and-cheese-based stupor (and on that little sleep, this was a very modest amount of wine and cheese) it was time to call it a night.

False alarm

No, I am not done with my work for this vacation. Sure, I thought I'd finished both papers, as well as work for Monday, some for Tuesday, and as for Wednesday, well... But then it hit me, while reading Patrick Modiano's La place de l'etoile as part of my busman's holiday, that Celine's first name was Louis-Ferdinand, and I could swear I'd put Jean-Ferdinand in a paper. Why Jean, when I knew perfectly well it was Louis? Because when four out of four classes you take each semester are about France, things French have a way of blurring together. Upon making the inevitable correction, it occurred to me that tons more needed to change in the paper, nothing so urgent as that, but much needed (needs!) to be added, and... yeah. Good thing there's too much snow on the ground to do anything spring-break-ish anyway.

In other news, Labyrinth Books is pretty great. Is it embarrassing that I'm only now discovering this, given that I grew up not far from it but had never been? Yes. The answer is yes.

But I now have the above-mentioned Modiano book, something by Pierre (is it Pierre?!) Vidal-Naquet about Jews (both of these books, oddly enough, feature yellow stars on their covers--gar!), and, last but not least, a star-free book on learning colloquial Dutch.

Romantic tourism

Shock of all shocks, I've finished my work for spring break, and am now trying to plan a "vacation" for the five minutes remaining. Somehow I began looking into trips to places where the Amish live. You can tour all sorts of places in Pennsylvania Dutch country, suggesting that the Amish, unlike the Hasids, know how to market the silliness, to the unfamiliar, of a culture with mandatory black hats.

One of the places the Amish offer tours of is the Intercourse Canning Company. Along with the tour, there is an "Optional 'Tasting Party' with a Bigger Spread. $7 Per Person (By Reservation)."

Yes, I am ten.

Regardless, looks hard to get to without a car. Perhaps Borough Park would be easier. Then again, I spent the afternoon reading about "romantic" (i.e. Orientalist, i.e. racist) French tourism to Algiers, so perhaps a day of watching "News 12 Brooklyn, 'As local as local news gets'" is in order.

"Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitism?"

This question is discussed at length in the comments to Stanley Fish's article, "Is it Good for the Jews?" It's about the silliest question imaginable for several reasons. First, no one--neither Israel's defenders nor its detractors--can decide whether "criticism of Israel" is criticism of specific acts done by the Israeli government or an all-out attack on Israel's right to exist. The easy answer would be that the former is not anti-Semitic but the latter often is. But it's not so straightforward. Of all the conflicts going on in the world, why do so many people in the U.S. and Europe, people with no particular connection to Arabs or Jews, care so much about the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Does anyone have an opinion about specific things done by the Indian government or the French government? How about all the governments of South America and Africa? Sure, we all have the right to criticize each of these states' actions, but few seem interested in doing so. Among those who believe that Jews a) control the world and b) do so in an organized and systematic manner, i.e. don't just happen to gravitate towards certain fields valued by society in 2007, and c) do so specifically to cause harm to everyone else, of course it's more worthwhile to learn about Israeli policy than any other policy on the planet.

Here are some of the more heartening things commentors had to say:

"I have found that it is unwise to engage American Jews on the subject of Israel. Even if they are kindly, humane, and liberal on other topics, they often defend political behavior on the part of Israel that to my mind is indefensible."

"Stanley Fish has chosen to ignore a fundamental truth about persecution of the Jews, a precept that most of Europe understands but that the U.S. cannot: American’s ongoing and unstinting support of Israel has angered Arabs the world over. America’s media, largely controlled by Jews, has stifled open and honest debate on this sensitive subject and thus, Amercians remain largely ignorant and willfully naive about the attacks that occured on 9/11."

"It would not be wrong to say “the Israelis are out-nazing the nazis.
One of the reasons given for going to war in Iraq was Iraq had or were building nuclear weapons which would destabilize the region. Israel has nuclear weapons yet the U.S. doesn’t condemn Israel and even provides materials for these weapons. I do not consider myself an anti-semite but this country has a primary obligation to it’s citizens not sending billions of dollars to Israel at the expense of U.S. citizens."

"as i get older, i have come to realize that zionism was a useful political position for the 19th and 20th century jews–it is no longer viable since it involves oppression of a whole group of people."

"Actually, I don’t even consider Israel as a Jewish State; it’s just another political entity wrapped up in it’s own survival and self-interests, no different than any other modern state. I consider Israel to be a very small subset of Jews who brook extreme nationalism, religious fanaticism, and outright imperialism all in the name of some delusional idea that God gave the early Jews a deed to certain properties in the Middle East."

And of course, the best is left for last:

"Okay, despite all, the big money of dual-citizen Jews, even though they are only two percent, gives them incredible sway in media, politics and Hollywood. Their Neo-Cons own President Bush and his cartel, and not one Jew loses a life in war in Iraq. The tail of USA seems, indeed, to be wagging by the powerful sons of Israel, who now want war with Iran, in which, again, no Jew would lose a life. That is the source of my disdain."

I don't have an answer. Comments like these make me want to give up worrying about any of this.

So close but yet so far

The term paper due Monday (!) is well within the page range the professor asked us for (yay!) but still has many an [ADD] or [CITE] remaining (waah!). The problem with writing about France, as an American, from one's living room in America is that I don't, of course, have any idea what I'm talking about. Books help, as does Clementine, but when it comes down to it, I don't have a clue. This might require some time in France doing research (eating cheese) somewhere down the line...

Daarbuiten ist kou!

Tis hier warm.

At this language-acquisition rate, in approximately 50,000 years, this blog will be entirely in Dutch.

The Brooklyn Nativists

I just finished Alain Finkielkraut's fabulous Le Juif imaginaire, and so am thinking about authenticity. (I also cannot stop sneezing, but I think I might have allergies, and at any rate, it's totally irrelevant here.) Erin Geld's article in the Cornell Daily Sun about post-college life in Brooklyn has led to a backlash against the hipsters. Although it's not quite the hipsters, but really anyone who graduated from any American college within the last however many years who lives in Brooklyn but did not (alas!) grow up here. Gawker even posted Facebook photos of a party hosted by the particular group Geld referred to in her story. The photos look like typical party pics of early 20-something urbanites--two of those photographed appear to be wearing white t-shirts and jeans of no especially hipsteresque tightness--and yet Gawker commentors are up in arms. Why? Because Geld made the tragic mistake of calling East Williamsburg "West Bushwick." Why, it's like calling the Upper East Side "Southwest Yorkville," it's simply not done.

My question: What's the big deal? In turning all groups of unwanted arrivals as colonialsts/imperialists, the post-hipster Left hopes to mock people out of their perfectly legitimate residences. Why do people move to Brooklyn after college? Because many entry-level jobs (or, uh, graduate programs) pay less than many yearly rents in Manhattan, yet are interesting and necessary enough career-wise to take on. For all the fuss about the "rich kids" taking over Brooklyn, what of the fact that many would happily trade outer-Williamsburg or not-quite-Park-Slope for a charming West Village townhouse with "WBF" if they (um, I) could. A lifetime Brooklyn resident making 20k a year at 40 is likely in a very different life situation than a just-passing-through making the same amount at 21, but neither can afford Murray Hill.

Natives to any land are bound to feel a certain attachment to it. I was born and raised in the city, and so I cringe a little whenever someone tells me that the city's an awesome place to spend your early twenties, but one you have to leave before raising a family, as though there should be commercials, as there now are about the dangers of second-hand smoke, with innocent-looking toddlers discussing the perils of growing up near Zabars. But many of the just-visiting contingent are my friends, and regardless of where they raise their children, they have every bit the same right to live here as I do. That's what NYC is supposed to be about--if you're running away from one thing or towards another, you live here, no questions asked.

Get me to Tel Aviv!

A conference that I really must be at is happening on March 20-21 at the "Université de Tel Aviv," ie Tel Aviv University. First of, waah! I'm here writing about Alain Finkielkraut and French-Jewish national identity, when some of the greatest minds on this subject, including Finkielkraut himself, will be discussing these matters for two whole days. Not only all things French and Jewish, but they've even thrown in a panel on, "Y a–t-il une littérature juive de langue française?", which might, just might, be of interest to someone studying French Jews while in a French literature department. Yeah, might be maybe a little relevant. And it's all happening in Tel Aviv. I do my best keeping up with events at my own university and in NYC in general, but I'm now kicking myself for not noticing this until just now. Hope there are minutes or something...

Dayenu

You know how lots of Upper West Side Jews adopted baby girls from China a while back? Well, it might be a lot--apparently there are no numbers, but doesn't it feel like a lot? Anyway, there's an article in the Times about how many Jewish girls adopted from China are having bat mitzvahs. Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro's took place, coincidentally, at the same synagogue as my own, yet, unlike mine, included "yin-and-yang yarmulkes, kiddush cups disguised as papier-mâché dragons, kosher lo mein and veal ribs at the buffet." This strikes me as cheesy and unnecessarily multicultural--would a bat mitzvah for a girl adopted from rural America have a country music theme?--but I don't have any adopted Chinese children, so I don't know how I'd approach such a situation if I did.

I cannot think of anything that says "Upper West Side" more than a young ethnically Chinese girl, the adopted daughter of a lesbian couple, who "would burst into the Passover standard 'Dayenu'" on (where else?) the crosstown bus. This has Metropolitan Diary written all over it.

Busman's Cancun

I'm now on spring break, and it's the most anticlimactic entrance into spring break ever. My hope is to get work done in time to spend at least a couple days on that busman's holiday I've been planning, taking a moment off from French Jews to learn about the Belgian variety. And, perhaps, to learn a wide array of Flemish dialects and idiomatic expressions. The learning never stops!

Getting this party started

I'm asking for comments. Here goes:

Israel is often accused of colonialism and imperialism. For those of you who hold these views, or who feel you understand them, please answer the following:

1) If Israel is a colony, what other country or countries is it a colony of? France, England, and so on did not cease to exist upon losing colonies because their colonies were aggressively pursued extensions of already-existing states. If Israel is a bunch of Westerners colonizing an Arab land, which Western states are they representing? Can't all the ones that either sought to exterminate their Jews or kept out those Jews about to be exterminated be by definition ruled out as places Israel could be imagined to represent?

2) If Israel is an empire, whose empire is it? If the answer is, "The Jews' empire, those warmongerers!," then doesn't this imply the legitimacy of a Jewish state as such, albeit one within more restricted borders?