Kitsch can kill

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
30 July '10

In his 1984 book The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Czech author Milan Kundera philosophized that “kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession.

The first tear says: ‘How nice to see children running on the grass!’ The second tear says: ‘How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!’ It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”

Transported to today’s Israel, the one transfixed by the Schalit family’s pressure-mobilization extravaganza, Kundera’s definition may be paraphrased as ”how nice to be moved by the Schalits’ plight.”

The second variation would be: “How nice to be moved together with all our other trendy compatriots by the Schalits’ plight.”

A measure of the syrupy kitsch may be sampled from crooner Aviv Geffen’s Ma’ariv op-ed. Calling Hamas hostage Gilad Schalit a “butterfly of wars,” Geffen addresses Binyamin Netanyahu: “What fun it is that Avner is beside you.”

School-aged Avner is the younger Netanyahu son. Geffen omits to mention that Avner’s older brother, Ya’ir, is in active IDF service, something Aviv himself assiduously avoided. He threatened to commit suicide if drafted, crows about it and avidly promotes dodging.

Far-left icon Aviv endorses whatever weakens Israel. Thus this Dayan-clan scion asks: “What if Avner, not Gilad, were the bargaining chip?” Geffen avoids mentioning quite whose “bargaining chip” Gilad is, as if Netanyahu holds Gilad captive.

Aviv proclaims that “it’s owed us to sit some hot afternoon, see Gilad return and shed the heavy tear stuck in our eyes for four years.” Kundera’s kitschy tear is lightweight in comparison to Aviv’s, who preaches that “there’s no price for one living soul, for one worrying mother.”

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