Folks, Who are You Pretending to Be?
The fighting in Gaza and Israel have awakened the ghosts of war and with it unbridled antisemitism. I fear for what's next.
In the face of anxiety, some people drink. Others smoke, or eat, or make mindless online purchases. I watch Mother Night.
Yes, I said watch not read, although I’ve read the book by Kurt Vonnegut many times. For me, it’s the film version of a sad song playlist. There’s something about the soothing sound of Bing Crosby singing, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas …” while a dejected playwright finds himself alone in New York City after the war that conjures up all the emotions I originally experienced from reading the novel.
In my teenage years, growing up as I did among Holocaust survivors, my love of the book baffled more than one of my friends. But, of course, they didn’t understand that the novel wasn’t a sympathetic take on a fictional Nazi; it was a mind-altering testament that people are victims of circumstances and personal decisions, and sometimes those decisions carry extraordinary consequences.
“We are what we pretend to be,” writes Kurt Vonnegut, “so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
That blew my teenage mind. It was really that simple.
I’ve memorized most scenes in the film but the one that keeps popping in my head lately is the moment that Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American by birth who became a successful German playwright, meets his “Blue Fairy Godmother,” a U.S. intelligence officer played by John Goodman. Goodman’s character tries to entice Campbell to spy for the Americans by climbing the ranks of the Nazi party. Initially, Campbell (played by Nick Nolte) demurs.
“I’m not a political man, I’m just not. I’m an artist. If a war comes, it’s just going to have to get along without me,” said Campbell.
(You can watch the scene here on YouTube.)
I first thought of the scene several months ago as I watched Israeli writer Etgar Keret struggle to keep his artistic work on Substack apolitical.
“In the year and a half of serving up Alphabet Soup, I’ve tried not to bring Israeli politics into it. There is something very polarizing about discussing national issues, especially in Israel, where terms like “nationality,” “identity” and “religion” are constantly getting mixed up. I wanted this newsletter to be a sort of refuge for pure imagination and emotion, a place that puts pragmatics aside and tries to speak to the world in a different way,” he wrote in a March post, entitled Pogrom.
The pogrom he was referring to was not on October 7 (it hadn't happened yet) but the one on the West Bank town of Hawara.
But just as the Blue Fairy Godmother (John Goodman) says, when a war arrives, it becomes increasingly difficult to sit on the sidelines. Based on the protests that have dominated Toronto (as well as many other major cities across the globe) it appears few are sitting on the sidelines with this one. And while we can argue about when or if anti-Zionism equals antisemitism, we can’t pretend that the massacre on October 7 and the inevitable but devastating retaliation by the Israeli government will not have a lingering impact.
For starters, antisemitism has moved mainstream. For example:
Why are protestors around the globe removing posters of the victims kidnapped by Hamas? How does the demand for returning babies and the elderly hurt anyone’s cause?
Why are protestors chanting “From the River to the Sea?” I’ve heard the logic that many don’t know the origins of the phrase or interpret it differently. I beg to differ. For years, many on the Progressive Left (myself included) have been diligent that their language not offend/injure anyone — up until now.
When in the last few years, have we seen an angry mob storm a plane looking for Jews to hurt, as we did recently in Dagestan?
The list goes on. Don’t even get me started on the prevalence of antisemitic tropes and symbols on social media. Sometimes the same lies are said so often they become true. The foundations of those lies were being established way before Oct 7, thanks to Musk, Trump, and others.
But just as concerning as the rise in antisemitism, is the brutality of Israel’s response and how its declared aim to eradicate Hamas may serve to radicalize others.
Those fears are beginning to surface. In the U.S., FBI Director Christopher Wray says he is concerned about “lone actors.” In the UK, M15 is warning of radicalization. Even in the Middle East, there are fears that things will only get worse:
“You’re going to radicalize more people..and you’re not only going to increase the trauma — you’re going to increase the demand for revenge,” warned Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian politician and negotiator in an interview with NBC.
Which is why I’ve been thinking about the upcoming 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht with a mix of fear and sadness. The pogrom that we commemorate as the “Night of Broken Glass” was initiated after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish-German Jew, shot Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat and member of the Nazi party.
That was on Nov 7. Vom Rath died two days later, giving Goebbels the ammunition he needed to launch the pogrom on November 9th. We know what happened after.
Often, it doesn’t take much for a flame to start a fire. The question we need to ask ourselves during these explosive times is who are we pretending to be?
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Next week, I’ll return to The Bubbe Tapes series. Here are other posts in the series:
If you are a hammer, all you see is nails. If you are conditioned to believe the world is made up of colonizers and colonized, of oppressors and the oppressed, then this is what happens. It's absolutely shameful & abhorrent. Terrorists are being celebrated by the progressive left.
Dear Leah,
Thank you for this well considered and finely written piece. It's some small but real relief to me and I think likely to others to read a sane, reasoned, and human response to the latest horror in the unending cycle of Israeli and Palestinian brutality. I too am always alarmed by the antisemitic acts which make the news in America and the far more well reported ones in Europe. I admit though, that these do not alarm me as much as the ongoing climate in America and throughout much of the world for right, law, and humanity. I see a marked similarity in the events and the direction of American politics the kind of chaos which will move any government, however liberal, toward a police state to quell violence. The events we are seeing daily in the news for several years are highly reminiscent of 1932 Germany. On the bright side are two things. (1) Jews are not the primary target here. Rather that is foreigners, immigrants, and African-Americans. (2) Most Americans have far more to lose than the people of Germany had in 1932. This is a stabilizing influence in that it moderates the reactions of the radicalized. All that said, there are plenty of people in America who live with the desparation of inescapable poverty and plenty more who are profoundly deluded by their faith and whatever other dogma they have surrendered to.
I don't have answers to any of it but for some odd unknown reason, I have some hope -- how strange. I know that your article makes a difference.
Thanks by the way for mentioning the movie, "Mother Night." I was unaware of it although I read the book and then read everything else I could find of Vonnegut's because of it, though none of them, in my opinion, measured up.
All my best - Don