In case you haven’t
heard, Jews are talking about Jews again. The
piece in question is sometimes fascinating, sometimes confusing, always Jewey in that wonderfully obsessive way of, say, Walter Benjamin (i.e., we probably didn't understand it). Following are the points you'll want to bring up at this weekend's Sisterhood Brunch:
Points of Agreement:1. Most of the new Jewish media ventures mentioned in the
n+1 review have been founded and/or backed by elderly Jews panicked about intermarriage and low birthrates. On their own, left to the free market, these ventures would simply not survive. (The beauty is that many, if not most, of these funding dollars are coming from otherwise histrionic champions of the free market)
2. With the exception of one point (see #3 below), its assessment of
Heeb is chillingly spot-on.
3. Generally speaking, almost none of the Jewish ventures discussed has made any meaningful gesture in the direction of coming to terms with Jewish power today. To its credit,
n+1 includes both Israel and "the head of neurology at Sinai" in its assessment of Jewish power, and pointedly gives praise to the rare exception: Jewcy's campaign against Abe Foxman for denying the Armenian genocide. Kudos.
4. The piece suggests an interesting quandary, one that has yet to be resolved: What is the purpose of a uniquely Jewish media when Jews are no longer dispossessed and when Jewish perspectives find full expression in American media?
5. Nice Hannah Arendt quote.
Points of Disagreement:1. “Almost immediately [after the 9/11 attacks], the production of Holocaust literature ceased.” Sadly, this will never be true (although it's possible they were being ironic) (But wait, isn't
n+1 post-ironic?) (or is that
The Believer?) (
McSweeney's?)*
2. Including JDate, even parenthetically, in the litany of Jewish ventures is misleading. Unlike the Jewish magazines, JDate did not originate from a panic impulse but from a profit impulse -- and in this it has succeeded where the others would almost certainly have failed. For this reason, despite its crassness and creepiness, JDate is the only organic venture of the entire lot.
3. I don't think
Heeb's mission is "to insult, desecrate, and otherwise trample the feelings of religiously observant or just simply liberal Jewry." I think its mission is to remind the world (repeatedly) that they're edgy, go to cool bars, and have had sex in their lives. Oh, and that they were "brewed in Brooklyn." This will never, ever get old.
4. I enjoy
Guilt and Pleasure, even though I'm too much of a Jew, and too middle class in my origins, to ever be invited to their elitist "salons" fashioned and executed by multimillionaires of the 8- and 9-figure variety. But we have to give
G&P credit for pieces by Sander Gilman and Eddy Portnoy, and for reproducing amazing artifacts from earlier periods of Jewish cultural accomplishment. It's just too bad the people behind it are rich, self-satisfied pricks.
5. You sold me on "The greatness of this people was also that it once believed its experience of oppression to be a universal one, and its fortunes tied to all those who are oppressed" -- but let's be honest, this is a romantic view of Jewish history framed through the hindsight of the past 200 years. It's time to concede that the 14th century Court Jew crossing the bridge to haggle with the king was not concerned with universal oppression, but solely with Jewish survival. Major swaths of the community are returning to this ghetto-entrenched view, and as much as we're repulsed by its assumptions and behaviors, we can't deny that they have equally valid claims to Jewish history and destiny. The underlying question is whether we should make any effort to change their views, or simply cede the 14th century to them and start something entirely different and new.
* Emergency consultations with the
n+1 staff have revealed that they meant the production of Holocaust literature has declined, not ceased.