Sephardic Heritage Update 1079
David Shasha
Friends,
In recent newsletters I have pointed out how Sephardim like Rabbi Jose Faur have been marginalized and ultimately “disappeared” from the institutional Jewish discourse, and how Arab-Andalusian culture in the Jewish tradition has been recounted by a scholar like Dr. Mohamed Chtatou, but neglected in the larger Jewish world.
In this regard, I have recently written a detailed examination of The Tikvah Fund in the context of White Jewish Supremacy and its debased racism:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fLA2M8VEO_7XB0jEZ8Ge_yRITR5eKu3K/edit
In that post I noted the upcoming Tikvah ASF conference led by Islamophobe and Sephardi-hater Norman Stillman and his mentor Bernard Lewis, proud White Jewish Supremacists both:
We see self-haters like Hen Mazzig, Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, and Ben-Dror Yemini involved in such programs, which allows us to process the primary role of HASBARAH in the erasing of Sephardim.
This is one of the primary reasons that a figure like the late Rabbi Jose Faur is forgotten, while his peer Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is lauded and feted with literally dozens of programs all over the Jewish world.
Sephardic students will know of Sacks and not Faur, as they are taught exclusively in the Ashkenazi tradition, with no knowledge of their own heritage. And this is reflected in an institutional framework, such as that of JIMENA, which is also prime HASBARAH clickbait with it glossy but utterly vacuous publications and programming.
Thus, we begin this week’s newsletter with a trio of articles on North African Judaism that is all about the White Jewish Supremacy.
An article from The Jerusalem Post reminds us that the Trump-Kushner HASBARAH Accords is not limited to the Gulf – where Ashkenazi Jews rule! – but extends to Israel’s relationship to Morocco. And this is also not about classical Sephardic culture and history, but about military and economic ties between the Zionists and Moroccans. Mizrahi Jews in Israel will not benefit from these ties in terms of their cultural identity, but as was the case with the White Jewish Supremacy-generated Biton Committee – remember that one? – it is designed for Ashkenazim and their socio-economic and political interests.
Moment magazine weights in with a prime piece of Jewish Orientalism, which presents North African Jews as primitives and Berber boors. Please make sure to read the online version of the article, which has the offending photos.
I have written about Zionist racism against Arab Jews in the following article:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VUAJJo6CRjp_C2xRVI_kCdOG2yy0RtCG/view?ths=true
And examined the problem of Jewish Orientalism in an attack on Zion Ozeri’s Zionist “Jewish in Caves” Haggadah:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VUAJJo6CRjp_C2xRVI_kCdOG2yy0RtCG/view?ths=true
The Jewish Orientalism emphatically marks Arab Jews as less modern – and less human – than their Ashkenazi counterparts.
We close the trilogy with another paternalistic piece of HASBARAH Mizrahi-washing from Tikvah Tablet racist Matti Friedman. Here he profiles an Israeli Poptrash Hip-Hop clown called Ron Biton, who is meant to show Israel as a “hip” cultural hub, rather than as a militarist state of Arab-haters, who have forced its Arab Jewish population to hate themselves. Keeping it real indeed.
Staying with The Tikvah Fund we some really “serious” Jewish culture from Blake Smith, also in Tablet magazine. Smith profiles Ashkenazi American poet Laura Riding, who normally would not be on my radar, but when I dug a bit deeper found a connection between her and Southern White Supremacist Allen Tate:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allen-Tate
Even when we read a seemingly innocuous literary piece from Tablet, racism and White Supremacy rear their ugly heads. Tate was a member of the New Agrarians, a neo-Heideggerian group of Southern “Lost Cause” racists, which is the perfect complement to Tikvah White Jewish Supremacy and the erasure of the Sephardic heritage.
With all that is now going on in Trumpworld, reading Tikvah favorite Batya Ungar-Sargon’s Newsweek article arguing against the possibility of a new American Civil War is an even bigger joke – and offense – than it was when it was first written. It is hard to overstate the CHUTZPAH-dik of these Trumpscum Jews. Tell it to Elon Musk!
Sticking with the Tikvah Straussians, we have Catholic Fascist ally David Novak arguing wrongly that Judaism is against Abortion. Tellingly, he does a Protestant reading – Bible, no Talmud – and comes up with the “facts” he needs. As is the usual way of PILPUL.
There has recently been multiple developments in the YU LBGTQ club fiasco, but it is still worth looking at William McGurn’s WSJ Intersectionality on the Religious Liberty Grift. With the tragedy of the Colorado Springs mass murder fresh in our minds, the article is even more offensive now than it was when first published.
It has been a while since the British Queen passed, but we have that SHU time-lag to deal with!
We begin the group of three articles with Imperialist Pig Neo-Con Trumpscum Andrew Sullivan explaining to Americans why Monarchy is great! Well played. 1776 never happened.
Hari Kunzru’s New York Times Op-Ed stands as a necessary corrective, as it attacks Empire and the racism that informed the Raj mentality and the battle against the natives which was central to the Queen’s mission.
We close out the group with an excellent report on the new King’s very robust financial portfolio, and the way that has parlayed his no-work “job” into billions, by using shady financial tactics including the off-shoring of bank accounts and not paying taxes. Tell it to Bono! As Mel Brooks said: It’s good to be the King.
I have long attacked the “Positive Thinking” industry and its mindless platitudes on “Kindness” – always coming from the unkind. The late Barbara Ehrenreich was a prime voice against this malignant Fred Rogers narcolepsy, and an excellent article from Counterpunch details the dangers of the industry and how it sought profits over moral integrity and human dignity.
We close with another excellent piece of Poptrash Idiocracy from our dear friend Jon Caramanica. Here he celebrates the reuniting of Poptrash Idiocracy machers My Chemical Romance, who are back on the road, purveying their EMO crap hysteria, with all the mascara apparently intact. MCR are now veterans! It is another chapter in the ongoing Death of Western Civilization, quality music as we once knew it has been dead for quite a long time.
David Shasha
Morocco and Israel: The Highs and Lows of a Blossoming Friendship
By: Neville Teller
Camel Caravans, Kasbahs, and Berber Jews
By: Gail P. Dubov
Ron Biton Runs the Game
By: Matti Friedman
Laura Riding: Beyond Poetry
By: Blake Smith
America Doesn’t Want a Civil War
By: Batya Ungar-Sargon
What Does the Bible Say about Abortion?
By: David Novak
Yeshiva University Case Means We’re All Jews Now
By: William McGurn
America Can’t Understand Monarchy
By: Andrew Sullivan
With the Queen’s Death, Britain Must Let Go of Its Imperial Delusions
By: Hari Kunzru
How King Charles Turned His Royal Estate Into a Lucrative Portfolio
By: Jane Bradley and Euan Ward
How Barbara Ehrenreich Exposed the ‘Positive Thinking’ Industry
By: Sonali Kolhatkar
My Chemical Romance, Reunited and It Feels So Bruised
By: Jon Caramanica