New York

Just as Arthur Levy returned to Poland, I return to New York. For me, so many generations removed from my immigrant ancestors, New York resonates deeply, as opposed to Germany or even Israel. Arthur's father was born in Germany; mine in New York.

I'm also reminded of another example, which is not nearly as emotionally or personally or historically laden: Georges Duroy's entrance into Paris to find his fortune. I lack monetary aspirations, but intend to find my fortune nonetheless: in the guises of someone special, someplace special.

I can already see myself living there, being content.

I am doubly diaspora'd, living here in Florida (and neither in Miami nor its lesser cousin, Boca Raton). But I do not see myself as in a diaspora within a diaspora: New York is my Levant. AB Yehoshua may be a smart man, a respected writer -but has he heard of our Moyshe Leibl? Gabriel Preil? Even Philip Roth? If he had lived in New York Yehoshua would not have said that Jews in galut can only be Jews if they live Ha'eretz.

לשים לב

Jews: stop trying to be universal. It's not going to work.

Also: I want to raise Jewish children, not necessarily Israelis.

Foucault and Jews

Foucault wrote a pretty baller essay about all the factors that culminate in producing authors, and, more specifically, how we think about/view them. He mentions Freud and Marx directly, and expounds on how they are more than just authors, but ideas, philosophies, whole encompassing dialectics. This can be seen in the way we deem things "Freudian" or "Marxist." Strangely enough, Marx said he wasn't a Marxist, and when we call Lacan "Freudian" it diminishes the former's impact. Freudian is recognized as a word by spell check; Lacan's formal name, however, is not.

Shakespeare "embodies" (or represents) a similar position - a precarious one, though, as he writes fiction. Shakespeare differs, too: I wouldn't say he has his own dialectic and theories. But his impact is tremendous and he is an icon, an institution, maybe.

Our professor challenged us to name writers as important: I would posit Kafka and maybe Proust.

Observation: all these men are Jews.

Analysis: it is not important that they are Jews per se, but it is important that it's not important; they are products of assimilation. They ALL epitomize The West: more than being Jewish, they are European.

Of course, these men were all conscious of their Jewishness, and it played a (albeit minor) role in their lives. Marx (or Engels, it doesn't matter) wrote "On The Jewish Question"; Freud said something about being proud of his Jewishness yet highly critical of religion (like Marx/Engels); Kafka had his famous quote about Yiddish; Proust - well...I don't know much about Proust. I know he experienced anti-Semitism, but that might be due to his upper class position. He probably had something to say about that whole Dreyfus debacle.

I am reading an relevant Ozick (omg, LOVE her) essay right now....

Thoughts on the Thesis

I've done this several times now: stay up late for no real reason just to work on my thesis. You might say, "the reason is to work on your thesis." Yes and no. I haven't been staying up late to work on my thesis because I have something due tomorrow. No; the reason (one does exist) is my love for what I am doing. I have retained enjoyment of my chosen subject and, hopefully, I will always retain this love. Jouissance! Can I make this emotional appeal to graduate schools? "Hey, I don't know three languages, but I fucking love this shit and have devoted considerable time to it already! Just please let me in your PhD program so I don't have to beg my parents for money/take out loans!"

But does past dedication correlate to future dedication? Grad schools think so, right????

Ode to Shostakovich

Violins like fiddles -
I listen to your symphonies
and think only of the ghetto.

DMITRI

suffocated by Stalin,
secret Jew.
Babel, alone, translated
stories into the mammeloshn.
you, likewise alone,
composed and thought of Sinai.

Richard Dawkins is kind of a jerk

Why on earth would he feel the need to create on alternative to the ten commandments? Ok, I guess I understand his annoyance with the constant references to an omniscient deity. But, honestly, are the rest of them that inconsequential that new ones are required?

Here the the original ones:

• I am the Lord your God
• You shall have no other gods before me
• You shall not make for yourself an idol
• You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
• Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
• Honor your father and mother
• You shall not murder
• You shall not commit adultery
• You shall not steal
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
• You shall not covet your neighbor's wife
• You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

I feel like Dawkin's need to create a new set of commandments is based on his ignorance of the other 603 of them and a desire to condense everything into a nice little package. Pious people are well aware that the Ten Commandments are all nice and good, and the most important of ones, but also recognize that following as many as possible is the path to righteousness. Certainly the Ten Commandments get redundant and annoying; the first four are all the same. But I feel similarly about Dawkins's.

Here are his humanistic ones:

• Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you
• In all things, strive to cause no harm
• Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.
• Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
• Live life with a sense of joy and wonder
• Always seek to be learning something new
• Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
• Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
• Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
• Question everything

These are great guidelines and I appreciate his sentiment. Some of them sound like a call to veganism, though, which is interesting because that is how some interpret kosher law. And obviously the appeal to skepticism is not shared in the original ten, but a penchant for questioning is a very important facet of Jewish tradition. "Live life with a sense of joy and wonder" sounds oddly religious, and probably isn't followed by most secularists, myself included, because they tend to be cynical atheists with a propensity for nihilism.

Don't get me wrong, I think Dawkins is a great dude who is fighting the good fight against religious extremists. But I have to call him out; I think he would benefit from a better understanding of Halachah, or maybe even the Five Pillars of Islam, which I wish I knew more about myself. What Dawkins's commandments lack, though, and I believe Jewish law has, is this commandment from the Pagan list:

• Work together for the benefit of all humankind.

(I also think Dawkins would benefit from observing and resting on the Sabbath [which I am ironically not doing] instead of publishing obsolete tracts.)

Busy as fuuuuuck

Yom Kippur offered no respite from work, although it's not really supposed to.

I would also love to do a Freudian/Oedipal interpretation of The Jazz Singer. Shit's crazy: Jakie and his mom basically have sex via music (just like in Thomas Mann!). When this is going on, the father intrudes upon the scene. An interesting shot follows as the camera remains focused on the father's face. What is he thinking? Keeping in mind that the father doesn't know it's his son playing the piano with his wife, the father could very well see this as adulterous flirtation. Jakie and his mother also kiss on the mouth, which may be seen as familial/platonic in the social context of the sixties, but nowadays: that shit's sexual.

I also like the scene where Jakie is confronted during rehearsal about the synagogue needing a cantor on Yom Kippur. Jackie beats his breast while claiming that show-business is a religion of its own (on Yom Kippur, during selichot, it is proper to beat one's breast).

There are also multiple instances of both Jakie and his mother looking at pictures of one another and being reminded of how much they love each other. Creepy.

The movie fucking rules.

Bernard Lewis is a bamf.

"Imperialism, Sexism and racism are words of Western coinage, not because the West invented these evils, which are alas universal, but because the West recognized and named and condemned them as evils and struggled mightily - and not entirely in vain - to weaken their hold and to help their victims. If, to borrow a phrase, Western culture does indeed "go," imperialism, sexism and racism will not got with it. More likely casualties will be the freedom to denounce them and the effort to end them" (Cultures in Conflict 79).

Rethinking Kippot

I recently changed my mind about wearing kippot. I used to believe that I should never wear them because I don't believe in god (I don't even capitalize the "g" or do that lame dash thing because spelling his name out completely is blasphemous) and wearing a kippah would mean showing my fealty to an entity I don't believe in or care about respecting. But if someone is so offended by my yarmulke-lessness presence in their place of worship, then I will go ahead and don the silly hat because what do I have to lose? I don't care if people see me wearing it and assume I believe in god, because I just don't care what people think about my beliefs because they're personal. I do care enough, however, to not offend anyone in that way. Or should I take the stance that they shouldn't be offended by my uncovered head in the first place?

Six Feet Under Is The Best Show Ever

It has a 9.3 out of 10 on IMDb after over 15,000 votes! It is kinda depressing, being about death and all, but it's still life affirming. That positive attitude is conveyed by Nate Fisher, who dies fairly young at age 40. But the other characters obviously convey their own philosophies about life and death which really encompass every possible angle.

Another really interesting character is Olivier Castro-Staal, who is reminiscent of Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger, meaning that he's full of combination of many different attributes. He's bisexual, like Kröger; he speaks German and French (and probably Spanish, too); he's a mulatto; he's an artist, but also becomes a professor because he needs a job, so he's searching for a balance between the aesthetic life and the professional.

Eff yeah.

Progressiveness Is Relative

I've always considered that defining "liberal" was dependent upon one's geographic location or socio-economic position. The other day, I was listening to a radio station that branded itself as "progressive," and they had a guest on the air who proceeded to criticize Israel in myriad ways. Being "progressive" or "liberal" in America usually entails siding against Israel and being very critical of that nation.

On the other hand, though, I think the "liberals" and "progressives" in the MIddle East are people who probably respect Israel's right to exist and maybe even praise the country for some of the things it has done. Take homosexuality for example. "Here's one thing the Jewish nation got right," the "liberals" in The West Bank or Syria might say. "Sure, there was Deir Yessin, (by the way, there were Palestinian reprisals as violent as Deir Yessin that you haven't heard about) but do the Israelis murder gays in 'honor killings'?"

The "progressives" in Jordan might say, "well, they also treat their women fair; they can vote and hold political office. Shit, there was a woman prime minister in Israel before there was a female president in America." Remember the Iran Contra affair? The militants, upon capturing the Americans, immediately released the women and the african-americans, because surely they couldn't hold positions of importance. Liberals in America pride themselves on being "colorblind" when it comes to race.

Sure, Israel has done plenty of fucked up shit. Israelis will often be the first to admit that. Israel and Israelis still do some crazy stuff today: maybe if you visit and ride a bus in Jerusalem, an old Hasidic man will yell at you for not dressing modestly, you harlot. And God forbid you go in a synagogue without wearing a kippah. And, after all, there was Deir Yessin.

Some people say that even the formation of Israel and Zionism itself were racist and unlawful. But are Americans allowed to say that? Especially all those "liberals" in California? What about people living in Hawaii? Aren't you all living on stolen ground? How many Indians were murdered in the name of Manifest Destiny? Whose that guy on our twenty dollar bill? Didn't he do some institute some Indian Removal thingy? Do Israelis give Palestinians blankets ridden with disease? Does the IDF actively target civilians like those Hamas guys do?

Do I even have a conclusion? No.

My Parents Are Fucked Up

The fam out to lunch today and we somehow started talking about how Australia and France outlawed either the wearing of Islamic Religious Apparel (Hijab, Burqa, etc) or all Religious Clothing. Don't know why I used all those caps. Anywho, my folks were like, "good thing they started cracking down on those crazy Muslims," but I was like, "don't you see how those countries pretty much fucked themselves over by probably angering them even more?" And also how it's a shame that a country which used to be a formal penal colony is not allowing religious freedom and is acting fairly fascist.

My dad starting going off about how Muslims are prone to violence in pretty much every other part but he wondered why they weren't like that in America. So I made the point, or observation, that we don't need crazy Muslims here because we have plenty of crazy Evangelical Christians who murder abortion doctors and we have white supremacists that shoot up Holocaust Museums.

And then I started saying some crazy shit, like how i'm not surprised that muslims today are prone to violence as their religion is young and that it's cyclical how every religion goes through violent phases. When i started talking about christian crusaders riding through jerusalem and lopping off the heads of muslims and jews, my parents were pretty much like "wtf, why are you talking about that? CHRISTIANS DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE [emphasis mine]".

I was just like, "dudes, have you ever heard of the motherfucking KKK?"

THEN I realized my parents also have fucked up notions of freedom. They were telling me this story about a Muslim woman who wanted her driver's license photo taken with her burqa on. They wouldn't let her, so she filed a law suit. She lost. My mom said (and i guess my dad agrees with her), "you can't change the rules, and if you don't like 'em, move somewhere else!"

My response was, "the woman's actions, while albeit stupid, were totally within her rights. we can try to change the laws if we want, no matter how stupid our claims are. But to disallow an ATTEMPT to do something you want is fucked up."

Phew.

Matrilinearity

This sweet article was posted on Jezebel the other day about "half-Jews". My first reaction was, "hey, something I actually give a shit about is on this site." The article cites The Jerusalem Post and talks about how in Israel there is a lot of debate about how one's "Jewishness" is defined. Apparently half of Israel thinks it only matters if one parent is a Jew, either the father or the mother, which goes against the age-old matrilineal (which, according to firefox, I am spelling wrong) qualification.

My thoughts:

I guess I'm technically a half-Jew, father's Jewish, Mother's not. But I've never identified as Half-Jewish, and would honestly agree that there isn't really such thing as a half Jew; I mean, what's the point? Either you're Jewish or you're not. And I'm Jewish. I guess it's kind of insulting to deny my mom's heritage - but she doesn't have much of one. I was raised completely Jewish. Why would I identify as half-Jewish? Why would anyone identify as half-Jewish?

There were a lot of comments by "half-Jews" who say they were denied admittance to Birthright trips, which is really sad, especially since I got to go. There was even a dude on my trip who was Korean and he was adopted by Jewish parents. I'm inclined to believe, then, that Birthright is disqualifying people on the basis of how "Jewish" they were raised, since both Sam and I had had Bar Mitzvahs and the like. Unfortunately, I think Birthright will still give preference to a full-blooded yid over a mischling, despite how "Jewish" or not the upbringing of the former's may have been.

The author of the article also told a story about how a fellow Jew once told her that "It's people like your father who are ruining the Jewish religion". This is fucking preposterous. It would only be a crime if the author's father did not raise her as a Jew. Would the person still pass that asinine judgment if the author's mother were a Jew but the author knew nothing about her religion or heritage or culture?

The Holy Land

I often think about this: how awesome would it be if the state of Israel had been established in Europe instead of the shitty middle east? Practicality aside - very fucking awesome. For one, all the best Jews are Ashkenazi, right? haha

With the creation of the modern state of Israel, I feel like Jews tried to create a whole new culture and a new identity, namely the pioneering, manly kibbutznik. Jews (Israelis) then had to forge an identity with MORE bloodshed, i.e. the war for independence. Israel's short history has been defined by constant warfare. Basically what I don't comprehend is the leap from intellectual, assimilated yid to a pugnacious, modern Maccabe.

I am just wary of trying to recreate something that existed a long time ago and bring it into modernity.

Maybe this is why I like America so much. In the US, I feel like you aren't really anything. "American" isn't an ethnicity (unless you're a Cree or something), so you mostly identify with your actual ethnicity: Jewish, Italian, Cherokee, Filipino, etc. I just want to be a Jew and have it left at that.

An Anti-semite That I Like

I think individual people have more mixed feelings about Richard Nixon than about any other person ever. Relationships with him top the love/hate charts. I, personally, think he did both brilliant things and stupid things as president. And maybe even things that were both brilliant AND stupid. His administration supported Israel during dire events (the Yom Kippur war) but Nixon was kind of a dick to Jews. When Kissinger was late to meetings, Tricky Dick would say stuff like, "you Jews are always late". Well, the New Times recently ran this article about how some new tapes were released which recorded Nixon talking about various things, like abortion (also racist), Watergate and the Jews.

From the article:

"Anti-Semitism is stronger than we think. You know, it’s unfortunate. But this has happened to the Jews. It happened in Spain, it happened in Germany, it’s happening — and now it’s going to happen in America if these people don’t start behaving. ... It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries." He told that to Billy Graham.

He also says that America is the Jews' only friend.

The Inglorious Quentin Tarantino

I'm not sure what to think about QT's new film, Inglourious Basterds (preview here). Tarantino's known for shifting rapidly between humor and seriousness, and incorporating hardcore violence, obviously. All of that appeals to me, as I have seen most his films and enjoyed them immensely. But, I don't know if I'll be able to take the joke in this film, which will probably take lots of liberties with an obscure historical event.

I'm critical of the hillybilly CO (what's his motivation?), played by Brad Pitt, who leads the titular group of Jews who have basically been rendereed into Nazis themselves because they're clouded with hate (and hate leads to the darkside, yada yada yada). So ties can be drawn to Spielberg's Munich and the whole "they killed Jews, we must avenge" mantra. The difference with Basterds is that the Nazi killing unit serves valid military purposes, i.e. spreading fear, disrupting shit. I can't remember if Munich had the interviews of the murdered Olympians' families saying how they didn't want the Mossad killing all those Arabs. But I'm sure contemporaneous Jews would have been all about killing some Nazis.

The film will probably be awesome. I know I can't wait, whatever my reactions will be.

Sexy Jewess

I've been watching True Blood (which fucking rules) and you get to see nearly all of the sexy Lizzy Caplan. You may know her as Janis Ian from Mean Girls (which also rules) and that one girl that gets bitten and explodes in Cloverfield.

Meshuggah

The news has been flooded with this lately. Some crazy, old neo-Nazi shot a guard at the Holocaust museum in DC.

The dude was EIGHTY NINE. Wow. What a dedicated anti-semite! It's kind of hilarious, in my opinion. I am glad, though, that this wasn't any kind of organized effort by young and spry aryans.

The most interesting debate that this event fosters is this: Obama takes office, and suddenly all these crazy right-wingers come out of the woodwork. George Tiller was murdered and now we have another nutcase who makes me feel bad for supporting Ron Paul. People have posited, on sites like Jezebel (which the gf frequents), that in order to make up for the annulment of Bush's crusade in the middle east, right-wingers have to compensate by quelling threats on the homefront. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it's pretty much an accurate observation. Why weren't liberals going crazy and murdering folks during Bush's regime?

One poster on Jezebel makes this great observation:

"Given the current political and economic situation - a Black president, Democrats in office across the board, financial conditions in which people (even white men, gasp) are losing their jobs - this rash of violence, from Roeder to Adkisson and now this, seems like an intensified version of what happens when people have their privilege challenged. These fuckers are white, male, extremist Christian conservatives, who are seeing the status quo they feel entitled to get destabilized."

Word.

And this op-ed in the NY Times elucidates more on the crazy right-wingers who are coming out of the closet.

Der Untergang

Watching Downfall again. I love this movie so much.

This is why it's so great: Yeah, Hitler murdered millions of people, a large percentage of which were Jews. But the crimes he committed against the German People themselves (the brainwashing, the jingoism) are despicable as well.


The film sort of follows Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, from her hiring in 1942 to her escape from besieged Berlin in 1945. At one point, during a Russian artillery bombardment, she laments how surreal her life is and how she wishes she could wake up from this nightmare. Obviously, the camps were more nightmarish, and I cannot compare Traudl's worries to those of emaciated Jews. But still.

The candid exploration of post WWII German guilt in this film is terrifying. Children soldiers committing "honorable" suicide, Goebbels and his wife murder their six children with cyanide pills, Hitler, the vegetarian, euthanizes his beautiful dog. I'm reminded of one of my favorite German writers, Heinrich Böll, who was dubbed an author "of the rubble," who himself fought in the war and whose characters deal with the shame of rabid Nazi parents and a sister killed at the hands of the Wehrmacht.

The only thing this film is missing and would make it complete is a scene where Hitler shoots up amphetamines. It would help viewers more fully comprehend his psychoticness. The actor does a fantastic job, though, with violent outbursts and shaking hands. We witness the conqueror of Europe, the largest threat to the Jewish people in all of history, as a powerless, sad man, wrought by delusions. We witness him as a human being.

Also exploring this theme, and highly recommended, is Sophie Scholl, which is about domestic opposition to the Nazis. At the end of Der Untergang, the real Traudl is interviewed and she mentions how Sophie Scholl was born the same year as she and was murdered around the time Traudl started working for Hitler.

A Jew I Hate

Sam Schulman, noted neo-con, wrote this inflammatory article about same-sex marriage.

He is also prone to crying anti-semitism. More on this later.

Valkyrie was kinda cool

Except my DVD from netflix was scratched and I didn't get to finish it.

But I very much enjoyed the irony of Die Walküre playing while bombs were falling on Germany. Reminded me of Thomas Mann - and more antisemitism. LOVED IT. srsly.

also, Eddie Izzard is a Nazi.

A Rant About Philip Roth

My ex-gf posted a facebook survey about books and she said that Philip Roth "focuses too much on being Jewish" and that being Jewish "isn't much of a big deal." She also insulted Roth, as many do, of being a misogynist.

So I, in my passive aggressive bitchy-ness, wrote her this response (which I obviously won't send directly to her because I'm a vagine) since she insulted one of my favorite writers.

"WHAT THE FUCK. Allow me to delineate the myriad ways in which you convey severe mental retardation. Firstly, what book have you read other than The Plot Against America, which a) sucks and b) features no prominent female characters. And not all of his books even focus on Jews. Secondly, saying that Philip Roth shouldn't write so much about Jewish identity is like saying Thomas can't write about Germans or that Toni Morrison can't write about black people. Furthermore, you dismiss nearly every other Jewish writer, since so many of them focus on (guess what?) THEIR IDENTITY AS JEWS. Thirdly, you cannot use Roth's misogynistic tendencies to discount his oeuvre (Faulkner, anyone? Shit, he hates women AND black people). Roth's misogyny in no decreases the importance of his work. Moreover, if you were to discount every writer or work with misogynistic tendencies, your reading list would be quite narrow. (Hell, your beloved Jane Austen relies on misogynistic stock types for her female characters, with Elizabeth Bennet the only possible exception. Maybe). Fourthly, I don't believe that you are in any position to pass judgment on the importance of Jewish identity. I'm offended, in fact, that you believe yourself in a position to do so, since you hardly identify as a Jew (I don't think you've ever been to shul, you didn't have a Bat Mitzvah or have a Hebrew name, you don't say "brisket," and your views on Israel are under-developed nor is "I just want all Jews to be safe" a real opinion.)"

Internalizing & Perpetuating Anti-Semitism

Self-deprecating humor has long been a trope of Jewish comedy. Woody Allen and Larry David, well aware of their own neuroses, allow people to laugh with them at their own travails because they look at themselves in a critical light. This event that I want to talk about, however, is a case where people laugh at Jews, rather than with them.

This Jewish girl, who is away at college, prank calls her parents on a live radio show. She knows exactly what their reaction is going to be when she jokes that she is dating an Italian guy. Their reaction is one of outrage and, frankly, racism, which the "innocent" girl predicted. The parents aren't necessarily racist against Italians, but one can assume they'd react similarly if her daughter were dating a Brazilian dude. Whereas Woody Allen and Larry David "take advantage" of themselves, this girl takes advantage of her parents, whom she knows to be incredibly ignorant and insular, and publicly humiliates them.

I'm finding parallels with the internalized anti-semitism that the Russian writer Isaac Babel suffers from. Internalized Anti-Semitism can be roughly defined as adopting the (anti-semitic) opinions of gentiles as one's own. In Babel's works it's manifested with Jews themselves accepting anti-semitic stereotypes such as, "like all Jews, I was puny short of stature, and suffered headaches from too much study." The girl knows her parents would react with vitriol because they are Jews who place too much emphasis on marrying a member of their own race and religion. But, rather than opening up an intellectual debate as Babel does, this girl plays a sick joke in a public sphere.

More parallels: Bernie Fucking Madoff. I guess the only parallel, though, is that Bernie Madoff fostered Jew hate.

So, internalized anti-semitism is bad in two ways. For one, it's Jews hating Jews due to external sources. Secondly, this perpetuates anti-semitism because people see the way Jews condemn their own kin and they latch on to that.

http://www.break.com/index/jewish-girl-prank-calls-her-parents.html

There's the video. It has 7 Milion hits.

On William Blake & Evolution

The only times I can pay attention to long science/history documentaries is when I’m stoned. So I here I am, rather high, watching a show on the evolution of the eyes of animals. (How I started watching this show calls for another long story). The first eyes, I learn, merely saw different shades of light, those were jellyfish, then we have crustaceans, living 500 million years ago, whose eyes are made from rock. ROCK! Mother-fucking calcite eyes! Then the show gets to vertebrates, reptiles, mammals, and finally it starts talking about mammals who are adept at night hunting; i.e. cats and tarsiers.

Now the tarsier is an exceptionally badass primate whose eyes are bigger than their brains. But I want to talk about cats, and about “eyeshine,” in Latin, “tapetum lucidum.” We all know what that is, when we see felines at night their eyes literally shine, allowing us to deduce that they have incredible night vision and are adroit nocturnal hunters. William Blake knows what I’m talking about. In his famous poem, “The Tyger,” Blake talks about the fiery eyes of the titular beast and wonders how could this animal have been created, or “what immortal hand...could frame thy fearful symmetry?” The purpose of the poem is a deeply spiritual or religious probing of the universe. The poem is not merely about a large cat, but it is about Blake’s search for a certain idea of god; an idea that I have rejected for some time now because of association with shows like this from the history channel (and Schopenhauer, and the Holocaust, but more on that later).

William Blake’s world was not populated by any kind of evolutionary scientists. Indeed, “The Tyger” was written before Darwin was even born. But Blake asks fundamental questions that we still ruminate over today, ideas discussed in both scientific spheres and religious spheres. The lines, “What the hammer? what the chain?/In what furnace was thy brain?” evoke enquiries that even now, 214 years after Blake wrote the poem, prompt biological research. People want to know what’s up with eyeballs, or, less specifically, why things are the way they are. Blake, though, was searching for a spiritual guide, or some type of god, something who could have also “made the lamb, make thee [the tiger]?” Today I am blessed (haha!) to be able to listen to men and women who, through dutiful research and the wonders of television, can give me answers to Blake’s questions. These answers, however, do not lead me to believe in an omniscient being.

Blake could also have wondered what immortal hand might have framed the symmetry of snakes, sharks and crocodiles and marsupials, whose eyes also have light reflective properties. William Blake could find (I’m assuming from the poem) no other answer as to why animals have these attributes besides the existence of a sentient creator. I want to sense the tingling of doubt in Blake due to the previously mentioned line about a lamb and the juxtaposition of a benign animal to a dangerous one. Unfortunately, the physiological variations between prey and predator do not shake Blake’s spiritual leanings. Blake (I’m getting pretty damn critical of him now) could not know that rabbits can see all 360 degrees of their environment, in contrast to hawks who have incredible binocular vision.

I don’t want to further delve into current scientific knowledge that might have swayed Blake into becoming a non-believer, but I would like to interject one of my all time favorite quotes that just popped up in my brain. Thomas Paine writes, in the beginning of Common Sense, “time makes more converts than reason.” Paine was of course talking about independence from England and not disbelief in god, but the quote fits and I flaunt it all the time!

(originally written August 4, 2008)

Tattoo Idea

I've been thinking about this tattoo for a while now and have been asking many peoples' opinions on the matter. So...you know how Hitler made Jews wear Magen Davids that said "Jude" (or "Jew" in the appropriate language depending on which country was ocuupied)? I want one of those tattooed on my chest.

Jillian and I were talking about how nothing within the Holocaust is being embraced by the Jewish community, and this is what I want to do with my tattoo. Hitler also created the pink triangle, by the way, which has become a symbol of gay pride/liberation. Also, the crucifix has become an important (the most important?) symbol of Christianity even though Christ was, well, crucified. [It could be an important symbol of Judaism as well, seeing as how many Jews were killed by the Romans. After all, there is Masada, which is seen by Jews as representing solidarity].

So I don't think this tattoo is religiously offensive, (other than the fact that I'm a Jew getting a tattoo) because the defacing has already been done by the Nazis. Indeed, one of my Orthodox friends said she wasn't offended by the subject of the tattoo, but that she is just against tattoos in general. It's also not like I'm dumping a menorah into a jar of urine in some kind of trite commentary on religion. (Fuck you, Andres Serrano, you unsubtle, petty moron. If you want to criticize religion, go ahead. But don't stick a holy symbol into human waste and try to pass it off as art).

One rebuttal to my idea was, "why don't you just get numbers tattooed on your arm?" And I was like, "well, shit, I would." It's more or less the same symbol as the Yellow Badge, even though only Auschwitz prisoners were branded, including non-Jews. I want my tattoo to be more about Jewish identity. So my tattoo is possibly more universal. (I also once saw a girl with a bar-code tattoo, and thought that was kitschy). Also, I wouldn't get this tattoo because I'm paranoid about very visible tattoos disallowing me from getting hired at some point.

Also, at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum in Israel) I saw art utilizing the Yellow Badge motif. So fuck you, haters!

Also, I'm thinking I should get it in German (my ancestors are Austrian) but at Yad Vashem I did see that the name Silberstein was connected to a Dutch Jew who died in either Sobibor or Auschwitz....I don't think he's related to me, and I don't think I had any ancestors who died in the Shoah or were interred, so if i get the tattoo in Dutch ("Jood") it could be an homage to this random guy.

This brings up another criticism of my tattoo idea. Someone was offended because she remembers sitting on her grandmother's lap and seeing numbers branded and her arm. She was told stories about the Holocaust every day of her life, and claimed that I couldn't connect to the Holocaust like she could. But I don't think she can make that assertion. I was inundated with the history of the Holocaust. I read "Night," I read Anne Frank's diary, I live right next to a Holocaust Museum which I saw the KKK picket! So it doesn't really matter if any of my immediate relatives were made to suffer; we all suffered.