{"id":1361,"date":"2004-10-16T10:58:19","date_gmt":"2004-10-16T14:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1361"},"modified":"2004-10-16T10:58:19","modified_gmt":"2004-10-16T14:58:19","slug":"hey-we-could-do-the-pogrom-right-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1361","title":{"rendered":"Hey, we could do the pogrom right here!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, to tell a story, an editor just needs to step out of the way. The <em>Guardian&#8217;s<\/em> op-ed page made a great catch with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/comment\/story\/0,3604,1328663,00.html\">this rant,<\/a> originally printed by David Horowitz, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.melaniephillips.com\/diary\/archives\/000842.html\">warmly endorsed<\/a> by Melanie Phillips. Among the key points:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul>\n<li class=\"loony\">&#8220;I am aware that many Americans are leaving their homes abroad and returning home after decades in Europe because they can no longer endure the daily abuse.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"loony\">&#8220;Where will it all end? I know many expat Americans &#8211; including non-Jews &#8211; who have received dressing-downs at social and professional gatherings.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"loony\">&#8221; I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in Britain without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"loony\"> &#8220;It is impossible to convey to Americans inside the <span class=\"caps\">US, <\/span>or to American Jews, the open loathing of both groups that dominates daily life outside the US today.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;d say it was impossible to convey it to people in this country, too.<\/p>\n\n<p>She includes some frankly incredible anecdotes of Americans being screamed at by complete strangers on buses or in shops for twenty minutes for being American and\/or Jewish. Her explanation &#8212; but you&#8217;ve guessed &#8212; is that <span class=\"loony\">&#8220;Europe has always been a seething hotbed of anti-semitism. England, sadly, has the distinction of being the very first country to expel its Jews and initiate the blood libel.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p>It is an important piece because a lot of Americans are going to believe it, and it will contribute to a gradually increasing misunderstanding and distrust on both sides. For the American readers here I should say that what she writes will strike an English audience as quite deranged: not just wrong but coming from a divergent universe.<\/p>\n\n<p>I have a particular, personal reason for regarding her as a loony: this is that she worships at the St John&#8217;s Wood synagogue, which I slightly know. I have given a talk there (on anti-semitism, as it happens) and greatly like and esteem the senior rabbi, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/comment\/story\/0,,639692,00.html\" title=\"Who would say she's talking nonsense\">David Goldberg.<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p>If daily life in this country really were &#8220;dominated by open loathing&#8221; of Americans and Jews &#8212; or even if this loathing didn&#8217;t dominate daily life, but was accepted as a legitimate feeling among a significant minority of good citizens  &#8212; you wouldn&#8217;t get Jews running for election to high office. Their parties wouldn&#8217;t choose them, any more than an American party would choose a Muslim, gay or atheist candidate for president. &#8220;Nothing personal, old man. Some of my best friends &#8230; But the voters won&#8217;t have it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>If Ms Gould looked round the congregation in her own St John&#8217;s Wood synagogue, she might notice one proiminent member is Michael Howard, currently leader of Her Majesty&#8217;s opposition. The Conservative Party has many faults. It even has a residual trace of anti-semitism. But it wants power more badly than anything else in the world. It chose Michael Howard last year because he was &#8212; quite rightly &#8212; thought more electable than his ridiculous Catholic predecessor Iain Duncan Smith. If anti-semitism were a serious factor in British national life, let alone a dominating passion, this simply could not have happened.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, to tell a story, an editor just needs to step out of the way. The Guardian&#8217;s op-ed page made a great catch with this rant, originally printed by David Horowitz, and warmly endorsed by Melanie Phillips. Among the key &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1361\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1361\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}