Another Tack: Edgardo and the quarterbacks

Sarah Honig
sarahhonig.com
11 June'10

Fate inserts assorted unexpected subplots into our lives. Some months ago, a reader from Germany responded to a column of mine in so insightful a manner that I thought it merits acknowledgment. From there sprang forth a friendship by e-mail that still thrives. This non-Jewish German friend quickly explained that his unwavering support for Israel is by no means the bon ton of his Bavarian milieu and that his outspokenness on its behalf hardly enhances his popularity.

A relative of his, a philosophy professor who currently teaches in China, won’t hear of visiting Israel due to its “flagrant human rights violations.”

But aren’t Beijing’s abuses, pressed my Internet interlocutor, far more off-putting?

China, retorted the professor, “clearly imposes capital punishment according to the law. Hence any reasonable person must arrive at the conclusion that China is a Rechtsstaat” – a state of justice. Not so Israel, judges the professor. “What law anywhere permits bombardment of Hamas training camps? Israel therefore is a Räuberland” – robbers’ land. The professor stresses that he wouldn’t even dignify Israel with the title of “state.”

It didn’t end there. My friend wondered whether double standards, demonization and delegitimization of Israel don’t attest to anti-Semitism (as per Natan Sharansky’s three-D test). The professor stood his ground: “If you want to know why anti-Semitism is resurfacing, ask all those people who had lost money and whose living standards were lowered. You will then hear names like Goldman-Sachs and Lehman Brothers and you will know why.”

The Jewish collective is clearly held liable for the conduct of individuals. It matters nothing that publicly traded companies like Lehman’s and Goldman’s haven’t been necessarily or exclusively Jewish-run for years. Non-Jewish names like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley obviously trigger no hostility.

My friend recently attended a family birthday party where one of the guests, a retired German judge, opined that “you can’t make peace with a Jew.”

Plain and simple with no reservations or elucidations. His flat-out ruling went unchallenged by any of the celebrants. It was axiomatic.

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