Jewish Literary Criticism

I guess I've never put this obvious thought down: there is a critical Jewish literary approach which is akin to that of feminist or queer theory. This means that within a large corpus of books, there is a Jewish thread that needs to be teased out, analyzed, explored. Back in the '50s and '60s, critics said that the Jewish novel focuses or should focus on identity, and so perhaps with criticism. It's easier to do this with "Jewish literature" than with other literary traditions; but, this is why there are critical works on Jewish characters in books written by non-Jews, or on books which focus primarily on non-Jews. Here, identity formation might not be as crucial--we might be more concerned with anti-Semitic tropes, a la Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby. Something similar happens in reading these works that happens when a woman reads books written by men which focus on female characters: my girlfriend has said so of Anna Karenina, and then she cites Cixous's postulation of "feminine writing" which can be sometimes applied to males. Is there a "Jewish writing" which applies to goyim?

To my mind, this doesn't really have anything to do with a canon. Ha! Addendum: this can affect the canon in the same way as feminist and queer theory: discovering and reclaiming less popular but significant works. This actually intersects with feminist and queer theory, because we have women like Irena Klepfisz editing collections such as Found Treasures, or a rediscovery of Myron Brinig, the gay midwesterner.

Kazin: The Saint as Schlemiel

So good. I am too lazy to lift whole quotes from it at this moment.

Also, Ruth Wisse appears stupider and stupider to me every day. First she critiques gays for corrupting Yiddish, then speaks ignorantly about the women's movement. Wtf.

Several Things

1. Today, the rest of the galus is nearly insignificant, and the main identities of Jews are either American or Israeli (Europe used to comprise another third). For this reason I think I will finally foray into Israeli sifrut: they are my corollary, the other half of my bi-polarity.
2. Why do we write fiction? One reason is that there are certain historical events that can only be made meaningful or understood through literature. This is why my argument with the survivor of the Shoah was justified, that fiction about it isn't only a valid exploration, but it must be written. The lives of our literary ancestors find relevance in fiction--not in their fiction, necessarily, but in fiction about them. Dara Horn on Der Nister; Krause and Ozick on Bruno Schulz; Ozick on Glatshteyn; Englander on the martyred; and many more. Time has come for exploration on Stefan Zweig, his suicide, the letters he wrote that are probably lost, the books that Hitler burnt.
3. America is unrivaled in writing cheesy holiday songs; Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful to be cognizant of history.

We Are All Max Brod

We read Kafka autobiographically because there is no other way. And it's not the readers' faults. This is just in the unconscious literary discourse. We simply know too much about him; so much so, that we can't help but see his father, his paranoia, even the status of Jews in Europe at the time, the closing of fate so to speak. If only there were more allusions to Buber in his work (it's in his diaries).

I also get shivers every time I think of Kafka and Rilke in the same room, perhaps saying hello to each other (unlikely), not knowing who the other is.

The point of Heschel

Can we analyze life/culture/anything, yet remain idealistically Romantic?

I read the memoir of a young ex-Hasidic woman. After essentially enlightening herself, she admits she "still found delight in Shabbos poetry." To quote David Roskies, her tateh's reaction would have been, "What?! Shikse! This is Shabbos! We bentsch likht! Poetry shmoetry. Shabbos joy is obvious!"

Perhaps her words were not chosen so carefully; they are quite dry. While I don't know completely what the young girl thought, I'd like to hope she was somewhat sincere: that yes, she does find some things about Shabbat spiritual, mystical, or maybe even unexplainable.

It goes without saying that the young girl's prose was incomparable to that of Heschel's, as was her intellect and erudition. Yet reading Heshel is to experience Shabbos joy, it is to know he experienced Shabbos joy--yet he talks cogently and academically about religious topics. Heschel finds the perfect balance between nakhes and analysis.

Maybe I should try to shlep through Derrida's ideas about "the joy of the text"; sometimes I do feel like analysis is a chore, and suffuses joy. Sometimes, however, I feel like Heschel, philosophizing about Shabbat.

Ozick and Self-Haters

Ozick wants Babel to be as celebrated as Kafka (even though it won't happen). We should be asking why she isn't as celebrated as Philip Roth (even though we know it won't happen).

There is misogyny to be found in the consumption of Jewish fiction, despite the fact that more Jewish women than men are writing these days. Ozick is the self-hating sisters of Sara Smolinsky; Feministing says the same for Nicole Krauss, who isn't nearly as celebrated as her husband.

Related somewhat to Saul Bellow

I need to buy the new release of his letters. In one, he says something like "it's easy to get lost in the jungle of Jewish history; you need a machete."

His quote inspired me to think of this: but how do we deal with it? Do we rejoice? Or wallow in misery? Can we balance the two? To use a cliché: our history is an emotional roller-coaster.

I think this needs to be dealt with more directly in Jewish fiction: the theme that our history hones in on individuals, as if they're on the receiving end of a funnel, who must then reconcile the past--"weight of ancestry"-- with the immediate present. I think this is a job for the Rosenzweig/Lewisohn combo.
--To take another discrete example: Felix Mendelssohn. Is it sad that his grandfather was nearly an apostate and brought his family up as Christian? Sad as it is that Felix was baptized, he was still one of the greatest composers and instilled fear in Wagner. Felix Mendelssohn singularly represents this dichotomy, as do many Jews throughout history.

Perhaps the only character of Bellow's that grapples directly with this history is Sammler (unless you count Bellow himself, being Sammler's creator).

I still need to read Herzog. Humboldt was so good though.

Dumbass white folk

Person 1:
November 9 at 7:53am

Hey y'all,

I know someone who is a totally insane Hare Krsna conspiracy theorist and she has this really anti-semitic sounding (I don't know much about it) belief about elitist Jews ruling the world? And apparently secretly running the war in Iraq? Particularly hilarious is that she once said to me, very enthusiastically, "It was the Jews who invaded Troy!" (apropos of nothing) and I was just wondering what you guys made of all that shit.

Here is a documentary which I haven't even clicked on, which she told me to watch, which I will probably never watch.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/ring-of-power/

Best regards,
Alex

Ring of Power | Watch Free Documentary Online

"Although geographically separate, the city-states of London, the Vatican, and the District of Colombia are one interlocking empire called Empire of The City. The flag of Washington’s District of Colombia has three red..."

Person 2:

November 9 at 8:17am

oh man. i have to get ready for work so i can't check out this documentary (and don't know if i can bring myself to do it anyway), but what i will say is that the belief that elitist jews secretly run the world, control global finance, are behind the war in iraq, etc etc is one of the more popular anti-semitic beliefs, especially amongst people who would otherwise purport not to "have anything against" jewish people. i can find better sources later, but for quick reference:

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forged antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903. The text was translated into several languages and widely disseminated in the early part."

Person 3:

November 10 at 3:10pm

I feel bad for admitting this, but it needs to be said: this is strike two against hare krishnas. I have now been twice personally offended by them. A couple months ago, one guy nearly accosted me in new york, and wouldn't let go of my hand while he tried to tell me how great the bhagavad gita was, how my life was off kilter, etc.

whatever, white folk. to be clear: what these two events represent have nothing to do with hare krishna-ism, but with dumbass white american kids' penchant for being duped into stupid, annoying shit.

and people wonder why jews are paranoid! in a parallel example, i loved all the stupid fucking white folk who flipped their shit during the 2008 election season upon hearing Rev. Wright. "What?! black people are suspicious of the oppressive white government?!"

So A., I guess I'm unsurprised, because Americans are idiots.

Person 1:

November 10 at 3:13pm

No, dude, you seriously don't need to feel bad for admitting this. There is something seriously wrong with Hare Krishnas. I went with them to a festival in Atlanta over the summer and had a long conversation with the priest in which he eventually said that his beliefs about karmic retribution suggested to him that the Holocaust wouldn't have happened unless the Jews owed some cosmic karmic debt to the world. This priest is, I suspect, where Hannah gets most of her conspiracy theories.

Blog Blitzkrieg!

Affirming, yet again, that we cannot divine authorial intent, is the similarity in Charles Reznikoff's "Te Deum" and Psalm 131. The bind of Jewish inheritance is clear; it overrides whatever Reznikoff was thinking.

" O Lord, my heart is not proud
nor my look haughty;
I do not aspire to great things
or to what is beyond me;
but I have taught myself to be contented
like a weaned child with its mother..."

and

"Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.

Not for victory,
but for the day's work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table."

Another post regarding History within Literature

I have noticed that an intricate intertextual web has emerged surrounding several key and peripheral players.

• Nathan Englander's story "The 27th Man" represents one extreme, with a lack definite signifiers, but a clear allegory.
• Ozick's story "Yiddish in America" has clearer signifiers and parallels than Englander's.
• Dara Horn's complete recreation's of Der Nister and Marc Chagall.

All of these need to be worked into my "fiction versus history" inquiry.

Is Edelshtein Glatstein? Yes and no. Certainly we can conceive of this as true; but did the events chronicled in Ozick's story happen to the real Jacob Glatstein? No, they did not.

But if we turn back to Englander's story, and the 27 Yiddish writers who are and are not the ten murdered by Stalin, we see that the story-within-a-story is quite similar to "The Man Who Slept Through the End of the World" by Moyshe Nadir. This real author, however, did not die in Stalin's purges, but from a heart attack in New York.

Tired of the First Amendment

Person A:"...Unfortunately, the media has many Helen Thomases who do not express their hatred of Israel, or of Jews, so directly but use it as the basis (and bias) for their work"

B: So what? This is America. Haven't you heard? Its your god given right as a goddammed gun-toting american sh*t-kicker to despise and blame other people for your short comings. That being said, in what way does this real or imagined closet anti-semitism effect YOU? And please when answering, try to keep it real. Spare us that "defender of the faith, protector of the realm" stuff, where you annoint yourself spokesman for the collective. Because believe me, no ones buying into this concept that this supposed selflessness and altrusim (yours or anybody elses) is trumping self-interest.

Me:

Paranoia of goyim, or fear of "closet anti-Semitism", definitely falls under the umbrella self-interest. I love Valley's comics, and agree that Helen Thomas is used for fear-mongering, but does she not represent (at least somewhat) legitimate racist sentiments held by many Americans against the Jews?

I am torn on this issue. While I don't think a pogrom would ever happen in America, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. One nearly happened against Muslims in this country; a country whose citizens ARE all too free to "blame other people for their short-comings." How many nimrods watch Glenn Beck and think he has the right to ask a Muslim congressman, "are you trying to destroy America?" Those who think Helen Thomas has a right to tell Jews where to live are complicit in racism just like Tea Baggers who think there is only one type of American are racist.

B:

"...Those who think Helen Thomas has a right to tell Jews where to live are complicit in racism"

Lane, you seem like a sharp guy. Sharp enough to know that in fact she does have the right. Just as you have the right to tell Helen to go fu*k herself 9 ways from sunday, Wow, all this talk about pogroms makes me want to drink a six-pack and caress my 12-gauge. :-D

Me: While I agree with you (how can I not? First Amendment, etc) I am sick of the Bill of Rights being used to defend bigots and morons.

German-Philia

While I would agree that Deutsches Kultur ist über alles, and therefore have no problem with Jews championing it*, but not over everything to the extent that everything else is garbage. Or, for that matter (and to an extreme), that it results in internalized anti-Semitism. Gilad Atzmon and his novel are merely a contemporary example of this pattern which was set by Moses Mendelssohn, whose antagonism towards Yiddish was mimed by none other than Richard Wagner. Not everyone can be as level-headed as Heine or Lewisohn?

I have not considered an equivalency in Jewish English-language literature. Mark Twain, the Judeo-phile, criticized Bret Harte for it, I guess. Englander, among others, claims to not be a Jewish writer, lulz.


*There was that weird moment in German class where my professor said I had a "great German name." Like, yeah, I know. Too bad bitches had to escape, right? Some other kid's last name was "Jaeger." No joke.

History in my Literature?

On page 229 of the NYRB edition of Der Nister's Di Misphoke Mashber, history intercedes, and readers are introduced to concrete, historic signifiers. We are left wondering: did history invade a magical world, or was the magical inserting itself into history? That is what literature is.

Oh, David Malouf! I would your parenthesis were wholly, incontrovertibly Truth!

So is "N" actually Berdichev, as your punctuation emphatically suggests? Is it? Really? We don't know. And that is what literature is.

Pilsudski

90 years ago today, Jewish fighters assisted the Polish army in defending Warsaw against the invading Reds. Jozef Pilsudski was instrumental in granting Jews more rights, and they joined the army as a sign of Polish allegiance, but also as Jews who wanted vengeance on Cossacks.

Wiki's page on the battle in 1920.

Zionism as Secular Messianism

Is sort of how the ultra-frummies see it, and I sort of agree.

"Yet Heilman and Friedman also argue that Lubavitch was in competition with Zionism, which it saw as a "false Messiah [that] was going to steal the faith of the Jews that Lubavitchers had been worrking so hard to arouse.'"

In America, there is such a big fucking deal (is this an acronym yet?) made by the Orthodox (and even the Conservatives) about what their "less religious" kin do with their lives. But do they care what Israelis do? I appreciate the fluidity of Jewish religiousness in America, yet Israel in contrast seems to possess a strongly demarcated binary.

Why is Reform more odious than atheism/secularism? And why is Judaism the only religion that missionizes or proselytizes to its own people?

Rosenzweig Rules

And is now the major influence behind how I read fiction and my potential master's thesis.

Straight Edge

One of my friends once told me how he had never taken a sip of alcohol, coffee (!) or puffed a cigarette or taken any other drug. While I respect his resolve and will, I don't think this is a form of moderation as much as it's just hardcore asceticism.

Some people are surprised to learn that ultra-ortho Jews can do almost all of these things, are even commanded to do so, because one's body should not be ignored. Is Straight Edge, or possibly other ascetic doctrines like Jainism, just an immoderate level of moderation? They are the opposite of too much: they are not enough.

Malamud's The Fixer

Just started it (it rules) and am already noticing ties to Aleichem's Tevye; namely, how is one a Jew when his or her profession is not ''Jewish"? Tevye is a farmer, and Yakov a repairman--they aren't Talmudists!

We shall default to Mordecai Kaplan's inclusive and proto-postmodern rubric: all Jews service Jewish civilization just by being and doing. Yakov and Tevye are notably aware of their vocations and roles in life, and, more simply, their identities as Jews. Sounds good enough to me!

Contra-Chabon

The douche wrote this new article, a long, rambling critique of Jews' lack of intelligence, inspired by the events of the Gaza flotilla debacle.

I really wish it weren't shaded by his purple prose, then i'd have more respect for him. but i'm always always reminded that he's another douche with an mfa, whose fame rests on adjectives, silly descriptions, and a general awkward word choice defined by mostly esoteric (and perhaps therefore inane) rhetoric.

which THEN just reminds me that he has no academic anthropological or historical background, and will never (thank god) write a truly important work of merit. fiction included. And so when he does sit on his high horse, it makes his preaching that much more unbearable; he is not a font of knowledge to which we should lend our ears.

He also needs a refresher course in post-colonial theory and basic Jewish principles, which, while not excusing or obfuscating stupid behavior, certainly doesn't purport any type of ethnic or tradition-based exceptionalism.

Jillian: and also, just because some jews are stupid and israel has made some questionable decisions does NOT mean that we should abandon the idea that we are special in some way, but he sees exceptionalism as fodder in itself for ant-semitism [which Chabon gets right].

me: right. if he is railing against religion, why not rail against "secularism" for creating men like Madoff?

Basic premise of po-co: all people(s) are different and therefore special.

Epic Debate! (kinda)

Original is here

Michael and Gedalya: learn about postmodernism, ya schmucks. Making generalized statements about the One True Facet which comprises Yiddishkeyt is an ignorant (and offensive) move. What's next, debasing feminism/feminist exegesis of Torah? How about blaming assimilation for the Holocaust?

"I am speaking from significant personal experience," as someone who wrote a thesis on Saul Bellow, Bashevis and Cynthia Ozick. Do these names even ring any bells for you, whose noses are stuck in Chumash all day? Open yourselves to the multiple types of Jews who inhabit your (not narrow!) world; Jews who certainly know what being Jewish means, and especially with regards to living in modern society.

This is what JTS is about, and I welcome criticism of the institution, just not ignorance that champions Orthodoxy as The Only Path--you sound like a goy. Please familiarize yourselves with Rabbi Marc Angel. Then come back. There's a story in the Talmud which recounts Rabbi Meir chasing after Aher on the Sabbath to learn Torah, yet the latter is riding a horse, thereby violating the seventh day. There are things to from those we don't deem completely pious or knowledgable about halakha--but to call these people (i.e. me, the Masorti, and Ben Abuyah) completely ignorant of living a Jewish life is a grave disservice to the totality of Judaism and the various types of Jews who inhabit the planet. I do not have to attend a Yeshivah to learn about Judaism/how to be a Jew.

To say something like "Only when you go through the rigorous training in Jewish law and Torah then and only then do you even have a right to discuss what you think is wrong." Just...wow. This is why Jews today lose their religion or identity: because people like you do not preach acceptance or understanding, even within your own religion, and believe that your way is the Only Way. Learn some humility, or I wouldn't be so vitriolic to begin with. Simply: how can I respect Orthodoxy (which I do, see my reference to Rabbi Angel) when it doesn't respect me and my lifestyle decisions? I don't want to argue further about that.

To return to the issue at hand: the Jews who attend JTS deserve nothing less than praise. These young men and women should not be faulted for not having, some would say, an ample religious background; it is Jewish society's fault, then, that young Jews are not being raised in this way (not my stance, just pointing out you orthos' hypocrisy). Was Moses himself not raised as an Egyptian, living the good (heretical pagan) life, yet he returned to the fold and became the greatest mensch of all time? Jews are entering JTS, and therefore re-entering Jewish life, to learn what has been torn from them due whatever circumstances beyond their control. Oh, and for the record, I'll say it here: Halakhah is not adequate for meeting the demands of modern Jewish life. Kashruth does not ensure the safety of animals, for one example. For another, nothing excuses the abuse women face at the Kotel at the hands of the Haredi. If Halakhah is what makes one a Jew...well, it is simply not good enough.

Why I Am so Smart

I feel that when my friends or my girlfriend and I enter a restaurant or a bar or whatever, I feel that we are so smart and witty and cultured and learned, that we raise the average level of discourse in that specific location. See: "Levitation" by Cynthia Ozick.

Jews for Jesus founder is dead

Judaism teaches that no matter one's beliefs, if they are a good person they go to heaven. There is no need, then, to pervert a tradition in order to synchronize it with your own selfish beliefs.

Being a Jew for Jesus simply makes no sense in either tradition: it ignores Judaism's obligations for the Messiah, and ignores Jesus' stance that rabbinical tradition no longer holds value (I think that's what he said--which is also offensive in itself). Will Moishe Rosen go to heaven? I don't know, but touting One True Path to the afterlife isn't an auspicious beginning; he's an offensive moron.

Shavuot is Coming

Shavuot marks the giving of the Torah to the Jews at mt. Sinai. It is a very under appreciated holiday, despite the fact that without the Torah, there would not be Judaism.

But there is a corollary to receiving the Torah: giving it back to God in the form of the Oral Torah, that is, what we humans have divined from His word, what we have learned. This is what truly demarcates us as human beings living rightfully in this world--the ability to think critically and understand stuff around us, and to give back.

I am about to graduate college, and will be presented with a flimsy piece of paper that supposedly shows the world all the hard work I've done. This is not the case. My work was a thing in itself, that found justification in itself in being work. There was no means, only an end. I do not mean to cast parallel aspersions on the Torah, and say that books like the Talmud are more important than their origination.

I think Saul Bellow is a prime example of this 'giving back,' and I'm thinking mostly of his künstlerromane, his 'high art' novels: things like Sammler, Humboldt, and Herzog. These are, appropriately or not, his Jewish books. A strange parallel happens in reading Bellow: we see that his characters, who are often authors themselves, ensconce themselves within a very literary world, and make numerous references and allusions. These men (yeah, never women! jerk) tap into the literary stratosphere/higher unconscious, then present it back to itself with their own work. It's very TS Eliot.

Then the reader comes along, and continues the pattern by reading a text about texts, and finding meaning (or trying to).

"The Greats"

Your greats are not my greats: you read Tolstoy, Goethe, Shakespeare--I read Rashi, Aleichem, the Roths.

Contiuum of Art and Life

The Jewish, Russian language Soviets and their Yiddish counterparts are inextricably linked. Brodsky's mourning of Mandelstam is akin to Ozick's of Glatstein - this last man is, of course, a spectre of Ozick's time - not quite dead, not quite alive.

Some more Jewish things in New York

I will remember the surprise and pleasure on the Hasid's face when I wished him 'gut Shabbes' in the WASPy business tower.

I will remember Williamsburg-Jerusalem and the deserted Shabbes streets and the small Jews with huge peyes.

The Hasid on the train who wished me a good morning; all the yehudim lov'shim kippot

Babel and Shapiro

An interesting comparison, relating Russian Jews, gentiles, and war time. So basically: chaos and anti-Semitism. Both men write haunting stories. Not for kids.

Saul Bellow

Found an awesome site today. From a piece ol' Saul wrote a couple years before his death:

"The question whether they had a right to this language and to this literature was a lively question. In their own eyes they sometimes felt that they didn’t have the right because they weren’t born to the manner, and American society—at least its elite Anglo-Saxon elements—told them that they didn’t come by it naturally and that it didn’t really belong to them. But the evidence of the streets was different, because a new life was forming in American society which belonged to nobody, and therefore there was no reason why an American writer should accept the words of Henry James in his book The American Scene, for instance, in which he was so distressed by the Jewish East Side of New York and by what was happening to the English language on the East Side."

I like that claim - English doesn't belong to anyone. In H. Roth's Call It Sleep this is evidenced by all the accents that accompany English and make it truly American, because it is being modified by immigrants. We never hear "proper English" and indeed it doesn't exist.

Holocaust Imbued Consciousness

One way to read IB Singer's The Slave is to consider it thus: it was written by an American after the Second World War, by someone who did not survive the Shoah, and even though the novel's events take place during the 1600s, the fact that they focus on crimes perpetuated against Jews makes the book a piece of Holocaust Literature. This means that the memory of the gas chambers are forever stamped in the brains of all Jews of all future time; it is a universally Jewish event that binds us together through suffering and the remembrance thereof (as have many events throughout our long, horrible history). Writing about the pogroms in Poland in the 17th century was Singer's way of experiencing the Holocaust, and he had to grapple with its effects in order to write the novel; this entails the classic plot of man's search for meaning in the wake of disaster.

To think that Singer's link to the Holocaust is disingenuous would be unfair; he was born in Poland and lost family in the war. But these ties do not account for the high percentage of Jewish fiction writers who focus on the Holocaust: Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick and Jonathan Foer being several among many. Critics say the Shoah is an event with which every Jew (and especially the literary ones, as we can see) must grapple and make sense of, if possible.

America

Art thou not Orc, who serpent-form'd
Stands at the gate of Enitharmon to devour her children;
Blasphemous Demon, Antichrist, hater of Dignities;

Lover of wild rebellion, and transgresser of Gods Law;
Why dost thou come to Angels eyes in this terrific form?

...

The terror answerd: I am Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree:
The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break;
The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands,
What night he led the starry hosts thro' the wide wilderness:
That stony law I stamp to dust: and scatter religion abroad
To the four winds as a torn book, & none shall gather the leaves;
But they shall rot on desart sands, & consume in bottomless deeps;
To make the desarts blossom, & the deeps shrink to their fountains,
And to renew the fiery joy, and burst the stony roof.
That pale religious letchery, seeking Virginity,
May find it in a harlot, and in coarse-clad honesty
The undefil'd tho' ravish'd in her cradle night and morn:
For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe, yet man is not consumd;
Amidst the lustful fires he walks: his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver, & his breast and head like gold.

-William Blake

Hahaha

"Oh well, then what's all the fuss about? I get the drift - whoever killed the non-existent Jesus is guilt-free because Jesus did not really die (I forgot about the resurrection part - my bad.) In fact, it was probably a good thing to kill Jesus so that he could be resurrected, thus fulfilling "God's plan." Did I get it right this time? (Banging head against wall.)

So I will step up and take credit on behalf of the Jews. I admit it, we killed him, and wasn't it a good thing we did? No death, no resurrection and where would you all be then? The seat on the Father's right hand would still be carrying a "Vacant" sign, there would be no one to preside at the Rapture, and none of you Christians would be "saved." So to put the matter to rest once and for all: I did it."

Future Post

I should probably write an entry about the fight I had with a Holocaust survivor concerning books. Hm....

David Roskies (BAMF!) and I talked about this.