Today in the History of Antisemitism

Let us consider Vanessa Redgrave, who turns 70 today.


Those who love movies remember that she appeared in some very important ones, in particular Antonioni's "Blowup". Her last scene in that picture showed her strolling past a shop window. The crowd blocked her for a moment, and then she quite suddenly vanished.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but a few years later I (and a good many other Jews) wished to goodness she'd disappear again.

In 1977, she came to public attention due to a rather remarkable confluence of events. She got a Best Actress nomination for "Julia," in which she played an anti-Nazi activist in World War II Germany. (That movie was based on Lillian Hellman's memoirs, incidentally, and later turned out to be mostly lies.)


At the same time she produced and appeared in a documentary on the Palestinians, in which you could see her dancing around with one of their machine guns. She referred to Zionism on 60 Minutes as a "brutal, racist ideology" (which the Palestinian nationalist movement apparently is not). When she won her Oscar, as a group of Zionists protested her nomination outside, she congratulated the Academy for its refusal to be intimidated by a bunch of "Zionist hoodlums" who shamed all of world Jewry (she evidently didn't know that most Jews in the world are Zionists of one kind or another).

And in the face of all this, some dimwit decided to cast her in a television show about Fania Fenelon, a Jew and a Holocaust survivor.


What I remember most about that last incident is an interview, again on 60 Minutes, with Vanessa and Fania sitting side by side. Fania insisted, in the strongest possible terms, "Vanessa Redgrave cannot be me!" And there sat Vanessa, looking - of all things - perplexed. Apparently, she could not for the life of her comprehend how Fania, for whom she had the highest respect, could possibly object to having her life story told by an antisemitic advocate of violence against the Jews.

Right about then, her career started to go into decline. She kept making movies, some of them quite good, but she wasn't such a big deal anymore.

Well, in checking out her recent history, I find that a couple of years ago Bob Costas interviewed her on the Larry King show. He asked if, regardless of political disagreements, she accepted Israel's right to exist, and she said "Yes."


Sounds like she's had some sort of epiphany, like maybe dancing around with a PLO machine gun doesn't really inspire confidence in a woman who claims to want peace. That's an image that's mighty hard to forget.

I started this entry with the genuine intention of wishing Vanessa Redgrave well on her 70th birthday. I'd really like to be able to do that.

Benshlomo says, oh God I wish that the mistakes of the past could be erased - mine and everyone else's.

Whose Huge, Big Mouth?

Looks like Brother Rush decided to celebrate his birthday by donating yet another comment so unbelievably asinine that it boggles the mind.

I don't have to spell it out for you, do I? Oh well, what the hell.

Like every other neocon-submissive commentator on record, Brother Rush has completely missed the import of Senator Boxer's remark to Condi "Dubya is my husband" Rice. The Senator pointed out, in language so obvious a four year old child would understand it, that neither she nor Ms. Rice will lose anything personally by Dubya's latest iteration of his same old Iraq plan. Brother Rush seems to have neglected the fact that the Senator included herself in her comments, which I'm sure was quite deliberate on his part because it enables him to tell everyone within earshot that the Senator was insulting Condi only. A lie.

Not to mention his implication that the Senator's remarks are racist and antifeminist. This is Rush Limbaugh we're talking about here. He's so racist he couldn't resist making a snide remark about a black quarterback, much less a black congressman, remember? He's such a male chauvinist he coined the term "feminazi," remember? And now he's so concerned about equality and justice. Riiight.

But that's not the best part. There are two best parts. The first is Brother Rush's description of the Senator as a "rich white chick with a huge, big mouth." Hysterical. Other than the "chick" part, that's a perfect description of Rush Limbaugh, and I'm not too sure that the "chick" part is so inapplicable.


In other words, as he and his smart-ass clones always do, Rush has taken a quote out of context and deliberately misrepresented its meaning so he can accuse his political opponents of something that they plainly didn't say. The other best part is that Brother Rush takes this non-existent incident and tells us that the Democratic party is "imploding sooner than I expected."

You've got to be kidding me. Does anyone with more than zero active brain cells actually buy this stuff?

Benshlomo says, Shut up, Rush.

Bad Boys Get Spanked

Today is the birthday of both Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. What are the odds?





Then again, it makes some sense. Here we have two egocentric loudmouths who go into radio broadcasting and attract legions of fans. Of course they'd have the same birthday, albeit three years apart. The only difference is that one of them is a big fat idiot and the other one is just a sex maniac.

By now it should be obvious which of the two I'd rather hang out with. Anyone who disagrees with me, get your own blog.

Benshlomo says, Happy birthday, Howard.

Ice Man

This is Dr. James Bedford. He was a psychology professor and a descendant of the family that founded Bedford, Massachusetts.

Forty years ago today, when he was 73, his body was cryogenically frozen in anticipation of being revived when a cure is found for whatever killed him. He was the first to undergo this procedure, which means he's been waiting in the cold for a long, long time.

What do you say to a guy like that? Happy deathday?

Benshlomo says, The good Lord moves in strange and wonderous ways, but every once in a while some guy beats Him all hollow.

Tale Told by an Idiot

Apropos of nothing, I happen to be reading the classic George Eliot novel Silas Marner at the moment. For those who don't know, it's about an old weaver in a 19th-century English country town, an exile from his former community and a miser, who finds an abandoned baby girl and through her learns to live among his fellows again.

It wouldn't seem to have much to do with modern American life, at least not in specifics, but then I ran across a passage about the town's medical practices and superstitions:

"There were women in Raveloe, at that present time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags round their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann Coulter had."

Yes, you heard right.

Now, it would be foolish to suggest that a novel from the early 1860's could be at all prophetic. On the other hand, George Eliot was no dummy. The question is, if Ann Coulter actually did have an idiot child, at least in a metaphorical sense, who might it be? And how much of an idiot is he, after all?

Benshlomo says, Wisdom cries aloud in the street and no one heeds her.

Consider the Source

Well, Mel Gibson is 50 years old today.



Do we have to rehash the old question about whether we should judge an artist's work by his or her personal life? Do we have to wonder again whether we should listen to Richard Wagner's music because he was an antisemite who stole his friends' wives, or whether we should read Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree because the author's real name is Asa Carter and he was a white supremacist? Yes, we do.

At the very least, Gibson is a confused and angry man with a few maladaptive habits, such as drinking and driving and shooting his mouth off. Many of his movies, on the other hand, show his genuine talent on camera. (I'm not too sure about his talent off camera.)

Torah teaches us that, in the event that the people of a city turn to idol worship, not only are those people executed, but the city razed down to the ground and the earth salted so nothing can ever grow there again. Any foods, jewels, or utensils used in idol worship were to be likewise destroyed. A rabbi once taught me that this law also applies to the products of sinning men (he meant Elton John, but everyone's got a different idea of sin).

So do we avoid Gibson's movies because he's a sick puppy, or swallow hard and go see them because some of them are pretty good?


Happy birthday, Mel.

Benshlomo says, There's nothing like a nutjob to rock your world.