Nate Knows Nada

Here’s
a great piece on the real dangers of anti-Semitism and The Passion.

Laurel
Snyder points out that the danger of talking about the possible
anti-Semitism in the film is that we will tend to group Jews together,
as if they were some homogenous group, with a consensus
opinion. We will cease to treat them as individuals, and we will ask
what “the Jews think.”

Lately, my phone won’t stop ringing.

Because suddenly Jews are interesting again,
fascinating, unusual and targeted. Because suddenly, everyone wants a
statement. They want me
to say I’m scared to death, or they want me to say I’m not frightened
at all. They want me to resurrect the Holocaust, proclaim that I don’t
think violence will erupt, but that my grandparents didn’t think it
would erupt in Berlin.

It doesn’t really matter what I say, so long as it fits into the
column, and so long as it’s a defined position, symbolic of all the
emotions of my chosen people, my Jewish race. So long as I’m not
confused, conflicted, bewildered by complex factors.

Now that’s some food for thought.