ktw@whuxi.UUCP (WOLMAN) (12/17/84)
I believe this was the article for which a request for
reposting was made.
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I've observed the discussion of Charlie Wingate's comments
for some time now. Those comments were at best crass and
insensitive. What I find infinitely more interesting is the
fact that Wingate's comments about "Jew-baiting" drew people
into/back into the net who implicitly felt themselves
attacked. Is there a moral here? If so, could it be this:
That no matter how far away we allow ourselves to move away
from Judaic belief and practice, what is in our blood will
draw us back. Also known as: an attack on all is an attack
on one.
I recall around Tisha b'Av suggesting that Zyklon-B and its
purveyors did not differentiate between a talmid chochem
from Kovno or Vilna and a Parisian boulevardier or
assimilated German who assumed he was "Jewish by religion
only." All suffered equally; perhaps the completely
assimilated Jew even more than his frum counterpart in
Eastern Europe because the latter might at least have had
the concept of Kiddush Hashem in his heart and mind. The
assimilationist would have had only fear and confusion. In
any case, a Jew was a Jew was a Jew.
If anything coming out of the Shoa can be called "positive,"
it might be the lesson that a Jew by birth remains a Jew in
despite of conversion, non-observance, or scorn of his or
her roots and birthright. The legacy remains even if the
inheritor has no interest in claiming it.
It is perhaps unfortunate that Jews exist who can remember
their faith and people only when the insensitivity and
unacknowledged prejudices of gentiles force remembrance upon
them. But that is better than no remembrance at all. It is
better than acting as the Wicked Son at the seder and asking
"What do YOU mean by this?" When crisis looms, there is no
YOU, only US. This identification with a people, history
and faith transcends the sectarianism that so often divides
correspondents on this net. We are and remain Jews even if
we identify ourselves as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform,
Reconstructionist, atheistic, agnostic, socialist, or
anarchist.
There are those reading this who may argue that the Negative
Judaism of the Jew-by-Reflex is inauthentic, is of the "When
Attacked I'm A Jew" variety without depth or substance, and
responds only to the threat to Judaism, not its enduring
promise. Perhaps it is sentimentalism, smacking of the kind
of stupid romanticizing of "Jewish suffering" perpetrated by
the poets Sylvia Plath and John Berryman, who identified
with the suffering but not the faith that made it bearable
and transcendable. Nevertheless, it is a place from which
one may begin if one has the will and desire. Reflexive
Jews can often embrace the positive, affirming aspects of
Yiddishkeit if they--and we--allow it.
Many have already learned that there is no escape from one's
blood and heritage. Many have also learned that there may
be no reason to ever want to escape.
Ken Wolman
Bell Communication Research
whuxi!ktw
(201) 740-4565