#emit

Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish 'problem.' Again, the word 'solution' can be as neutral as the words 'question' or 'problem,' but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#gertrude-stein #holocaust #irish-question #jewish-question #jews

If my mother's intention in whole or in part was to ensure that I never had to suffer any indignity or embarrassment for being a Jew, then she succeeded well enough. And in any case there were enough intermarriages and 'conversions' on both sides of her line to make me one of those many mischling hybrids who are to be found distributed all over the known world. And, as someone who doesn't really believe that the human species is subdivided by 'race,' let alone that a nation or nationality can be defined by its religion, why should I not let the whole question slide away from me? Why—and then I'll stop asking rhetorical questions—did I at some point resolve that, in whatever tone of voice I was asked 'Are you a Jew?' I would never hear myself deny it? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#intermarriage #jews #mothers #nationality #race

It seemed ironic that Lowell Levine and I, who were both Jewish, were going over to identify the remains of a man who was so anti-Semitic. ↗

— Michael Baden

#both #going #i #identify #ironic

Anti-Semitism has no historical, political and certainly no philosophical origins. Anti-Semitism is a disease. ↗

— Daniel Barenboim

#certainly #disease #historical #origins #philosophical

I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community. ↗

— Harry Belafonte

#always #anti-semitism #been #community #even

It is often said that Poland is a country where there is anti-semitism and no Jews, which is pathology in its purest state. ↗

— Bronislaw Geremek

#country #jews #often #pathology #poland

When ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of extremity thou have passed through. Forbearance is the root of all quietness and assurance forever. ↗

— Tokugawa Ieyasu

#arise #assurance #days #desires #extremity

There was no reason to label us as anti-Semitic. ↗

— Jean-Marie Le Pen

#label #no reason #reason #us

Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry. ↗

— Nick Cohen

#bigotry #catholicism #conspiracy-theories #dictatorship #feminism

At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: “When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.” And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe. ↗

— Frantz Fanon

#oppression #racism #attitude