Godless Jews: The Original Atheists With Attitude – Freud (Part III)

Over at Jbooks, I published the third part of my series on Godless Jews which focuses on the atheistic writings of perhaps the greatest of all Jewish atheists, Sigmund Freud. Here is an excerpt.

On the question of God, Freud had famously argued that God is a projection of our deep-seated wishes onto an imaginary being. Freud calls religious truth claims illusions, by which he means highly improbable/impossible wishes about the world and one’s place in it.

In The Future of An Illusion (1927) Freud writes: “We shall tell ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be.”

Freud maintained that the origin of those wishes lay in our need to overcome the terrifying forces of nature, be reconciled to our fate, and be compensated for the demands of civilization.

What’s more, employing the insights of psychoanalysis, Freud argues that our construction and relationship with God is modeled on our early relationship with our parents (particularly our fathers). Just as our parents assuaged our sense of helplessness as children, so too God becomes our protector and guardian. For Freud, it was not enough to say (as Rose had) that man creates God in his own image, rather, Freud concluded that man creates God in his parent’s image.

To read more: Please click here.

Coming Out In A Neo-Nazi Bookstore

From a series of articles I wrote for Haaretz on being a Jew in Barcelona.

Epiphany in a Spanish neo-Nazi bookstore

By Roi Ben-Yehuda

I came to Barcelona on a skipped heartbeat. I fell in love with a woman who lived in the Catalonian capital, and I decided to pack up a suitcase and move to Spain. It was as simple as that. But when I arrived my heart skipped another beat, only this time it was for a less auspicious reason – there were swastikas everywhere.

Barcelona is a beautiful city. People often say that about a lot of places, but in the case of Barcelona it also happens to be true. Barcelonians are an extremely affable people who exhibit the virtue of patience and gentleness that an Israeli/New Yorker like myself can only admire covetously. And whatever quality they lack, they make up for in architecture. Walking through the streets of Barcelona is like walking through a symphony of frozen music: one is surrounded by a myriad of buildings that verge on the sublime.

For all its beauty and friendliness, my eyes kept turning, again and again, on something I couldn’t quite believe. In just about every place I looked, I saw swastikas and anti-swastika graffiti. From giant spray-painted images adorning the walls of otherwise innocuous buildings, to tiny ones on the back of benches. From pro-Nazi slogans telling all foreigners to leave the country, to anti-Nazi statements which read: “Nazis, there will not be mercy! Never forget, never forgive. Nazi die!”

Much to my surprise, the Nazi issue was very much alive on the walls and benches of Barcelona.

In today’s Spain, like in much of modern Europe, the symbol of the swastika is thick with meaning that transcends its World War II context. Of course it is not that the swastika has been appropriated to mean something new, rather it is just that it has been extended to its logical conclusion of all-embracing hate of the other.

If the presence of swastikas were not enough, Barcelona also has the dubious honor of being home to Europe’s most famous neo-Nazi bookstore, brazenly titled “Europa Bookstore: Persecuted Books – The Truth Will Set You Free.”

A bookstore full of Nazi-phile content is a particularly vulgar phenomenon for a Jewish writer. I can take Nazi speeches and demonstrations. I can take Nazi videos. I can even take Nazi music. But books? I find books to be the ultimate symbol of civilization. For me to desecrate a book has nothing to do with ripping apart its pages, or burning them – rather, it has everything to do with words.

A neo-Nazi bookstore is therefore a store dedicated to graphic abominations. I am aware that books, like any form of cultural technology, are amoral – vehicles for communication that can carry messages of falsehood or truth, beauty or ugliness, hate or love. But as a bibliophile and as a Jew (can the two really be differentiated), I reject such neutrality.

During my first few weeks in Barcelona I mustered the courage to pay Europa Bookstore a visit. I was surprised to see how well kept and attractive the store actually was; if I hadn’t known better, I would have been excited to enter. In the store’s front window, right below the sign reading, “the truth will set us free,” I noticed that they accept American Express – a rarity in Barcelona.

The books in the store were a literary mix covering revisionism, fascism, Israel-bashing, Hitler-praising, anti-immigration and homophobia. To this was added DVDs and CDs of Hitler’s “greatest hits.”

In my best Spanglish, I told a young woman who asked if I needed help that I would like to take some pictures and talk to her. She hesitated and then declined, but told me that I could “come back tomorrow and speak to the leader.”

But then something happened to me. Perhaps it was all the Nazi material, or the war between my brain (a staunch believer of free speech) and my heart (an elitist moralist), or maybe it was the thought of my Holocaust survivor grandmother seeing me inside this den of disgrace; but as I walked around I had a “for the six million!” moment. One of those moments that lead Jews to do something about injustice. So I took out my camera and started taking pictures. It wasn’t much, but it was my way of giving the middle finger to everything the store stood for (and blowing the journalistic opportunity to meet “the leader”).

As I walked out of the store I heard a voice shouting behind me, it was the young woman who had offered to help me earlier.

“I saw you take pictures”, she said.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Give me your camera”, she had raised her voice. “I want to see the pictures. I want to eliminate the pictures!”

Not sure if it was the translation of Spanish to English, but having a Neo-Nazi use the word “eliminate” in a sentence while talking to me got my blood flowing and my heart skipping beats again.

“I bet there are a lot of things you want to eliminate,” I uttered nervously, “but you are not getting my camera.”

She gave me a baleful look and stormed back into the store. I knew it was high time for me to leave, before I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with her friends. But I also knew I would have to return.

Indeed, later that night, when the store was closed, I revisited the scene (a mere 10 minutes walk from my house). Much to my surprise I found a plaque I had overlooked in my earlier visit.

Situated on the ground, right next to the store, was a commemorative inscription that read: “Anne Frank 1929-1945”.

Apparently the neighbors in the street had their own “for the six million!” moment, and had petition the city government to post this plaque as a reminder to all who enter the store.

Being in a neo-Nazi bookstore in Europe was a profound experience for me. It seems that I walked into the bookstore a human being, and I left a Jew. But I also left the store more Muslim, black, and gay than I did coming in. A foreigner in the true sense of the word: ready for chutzpa-filled action in the face of moral abomination.

Perhaps Barcelona was going to be alright after all.

To read more, please click here. As always, if the spirit moves you, please leave a comment.

Bass Jamming

Trying out my camera with a little bass jam.

Jewcy Thoughts: Would Gandhi Have Survived Israel?

Recently the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a video showing an Israeli solider shooting an Israeli protester with a rubber bullet at close range. The vid got me thinking about the following question: Would Gandhi have survived Israel? My response to that question is my latest from Jewcy. Here is a taste:

The “Gandhi in Palestine” theory also ignores the reality that the Israeli heart, like an egg in boiling water, has become hardened. It’s not that the Israeli people are lacking in compassion. It’s just that the situation has created more than one wall dividing us from the Palestinians. The only reason we pay attention to this video is because it captures an Israeli solider shooting a fellow Israeli. Were this a Palestinian, we would not have cared. Indeed, it would take a great deal of exposure to lucid raw injustice to weaken our Dershowitzian Super-Egos — those voices inside our heads that have been fine-tuned to explain away and assuage our guilt.

To read more, please click here. As always, if the spirit moves you, please feel free to leave your comments at the end of the article.

Poem of the Day: A Ghost Tale

A ghost is an incomplete.

A soul yearning for a body
A lover calling for a beloved.
A people searching for home.

God aching for the faithful.

All are ghost.
All are incomplete.

The world conspires against ghosts.
There is an exorcism in every corner.
Every heart struggles with its own incompletes.
At once expelling and admitting potentialities.

Humanity is a ghost.
And history is one long ghost tale.
Restless apparitions crawling, marching, running.
Entering Eden through the back door.

But fear not, for in the end all ghosts rise in the air.
And as the poet once told us
All that rises must converge.

A Muslim and A Jew Solving the Arab-Israeli Conflict One Walk At A Time.

My good friend Raquel Evita Saraswati has written a beautiful, honest, and insightful blog entry inspired by a conversation we had a while back on the Arab-ISraeli conflict. Here is an excerpt:

Last year, Roi and I were strolling the streets of New York City, hashing out our proposed solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. George Bush wasn’t listening, for sure. Of course, neither was Hamas. But there we were, an Israeli and a Muslim, a man and a woman, working through our most unlikely Manhattan Peace Accords.

I’ll admit now what I didn’t admit to Roi then: this was a tough conversation for me. It’s an issue that – like it does for so many – frustrates me. I remember exactly where I have been every time major movements have been made toward peace in the region. However, I better remember where I’ve been every time that already fractured chance at peace has been shattered by a resurgence in violence.

Something Roi said during our walk remained with me. He shared a powerful analogy I’ve found applicable to so many struggles for justice, for peace and for reconciliation.

Roi talked about what would best be called an escape to safety at someone else’s expense: if you are in a burning building, you may have no choice but to jump. After all, you’ll die otherwise. But – what if the result of your leap to safety is that you land on someone else’s back? What if, after you realize that you’ve landed feet-first on another person, you stayed there? What if, finally – you thought of stepping off, but feared that once you did, the person whose back you’ve occupied might finally take this chance to retaliate? This last fear may be irrational, it may not be — but even still, it is a real fear. What would you do?

To read more, click here.

“We are here temporarily” – Israelis In The U.S.

From PresenTense, my article on Israelis liviing in the United States. Here is an excerpt:

For a long time, Jews who immigrated out of Israel were viewed in a negative light. By leaving Israel, they physically rejected and negated what the Jewish state stood for—an ingathering of exiles. Given that Israel as a democracy could not bar its citizens from leaving, its only tool was to bludgeon their Zionist superego with guilt.

The stigmatization was evident in the language itself. The very Hebrew word for the people who left the country is “yordim” —literally, those who descend or go down. This stood in stark contrast with “olim”—literally those who ascend or go up. In 1976, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin famously described yordim as “leftover weaklings” and “lowliest of parasites.” Rabin later retracted his statement, but for a long time afterwards, the notion stuck in the collective consciousness of most Israelis.

In recent years, the Israeli government has taken a different and softer approach to the phenomenon of yordim. Instead of shaming them into returning, the government has attempted to entice (some would say bribe) them back.

To read more, click here.

Irshad Manji Features Me As An Agent of Moral Courage

Every few weeks, the public intellectual Irshad Manji features people who she calls agents of moral courage: “Those who brave the disapproval of their own communities for the sake of a greater good.” Today, much to my surprise, Irshad included me among those selected. The occasion – My “tough-love letter” to Israel. I am touched and inspired by this honor.

Have a read:

Agent of moral courage: Roi Ben-Yehuda

It’s Israel’s 60th birthday, and not every Jew is celebrating unconditionally.

Witness Roi Ben-Yehuda. He’s no party pooper. The boy knows how to have a good time. (Last year, he introduced me to the obnoxious Sacha Baron Cohen character known as Borat, and still imitates this clown at the most absurd moments in an otherwise serious conversation…)

Instead, Roi is an agent of moral courage, speaking truth to power not only when necessary, but also when inconvenient — on a landmark anniversary. A rising journalist and public thinker, he’s just published a “tough love letter” to his country of Israel. Here’s a passage:

“At sixty years young, you are an amazing success story and we are your grateful children. But grateful does not mean blind. When you shine a light on an object, you are also bound to get its shadow. And there is no escaping the fact that your shadow is Palestine.”

He goes on to write words that some will consider harsh. I consider them humane in that Roi sees the shared humanity of Palestinians and Israelis. So he also sees their destiny as shared. That’s why, elsewhere in his extraordinary letter to Israel, Roi writes that “the greatest gift you can give for your birthday is to lend a hand in creating a birthday for the Palestinian state. Don’t settle for just removing yourself; help construct a positive future for your sister nation.”

Imagine: a patriot who believes in giving rather than receiving on his country’s birthday, not as an act of charity but as a statement of national renewal. It’s what I’ve come to expect from these odd individuals whom I call agents of moral courage.

From the rest of the world, I’ve come to expect allegations of racism. Recently, I received several emails accusing me of anti-Semitism when I pointed out that secular Jewish women in Israel must still go to rabbinical courts for divorces. Even then, they often wind up with the shaft. Israel, in short, isn’t a perfect democracy for Israeli Jews, let alone for Israeli Arabs.

Finding this “shadow,” I suppose, makes me an anti-Semite. What a shame not just for Israel, but for democracy itself.

Democracy demands dissent — not to undermine its ideals but precisely to help realize them.

Roi Ben-Yehuda is one who gets it. He embodies a sentiment prominently showcased at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC: “Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

Jewcy Thoughts: My (Tough) Love Letter To Israel

As everyone knows, Israel is turning sixty tomorrow. For the occasion I published over at Jewcy.com a (tough) love letter to my country. As you will read, the letter is more of a creative piece than my standard articles. Hope you enjoy it:

Dear Israel,

Your son, the poet Yehuda Amichai, once described you as a land divided into two districts: memory and hope. The residents of each district mingle with each other; they are, Amichai tells us, either returning from a funeral or a wedding.

Contemplating you at sixty I find myself planting my feet in both of your districts of memory and hope – a man simultaneously returning from a funeral and a wedding.

To read more, please click here. As always, I encourage you to leave your insightful remarks at the end of the article.

Response To My Messianic Article

Over at The Kvetcher, David Kelsey has the following to say about my defense of Messianic Jews:

Roi Ben-Yehuda is hand-wringing over on Jewcy about the way Jews for Jesus are being treated in Israel. He is upset that the Jews for Jesus are not being accepted as Jews, and notes,

“If we are going to say that Hitler and not Halacha determines who is a Jew, then we need to make room for Jews who also believe in Jesus — as Hitler would have done.”

Ben-Yehuda has a good point, and I would note that when the Zionist Entity first decided that Hitler was the ultimate authority on who is a Jew, no one could have predicted this problem specifically, or that there would be problems generally. After all, why should there be problems when the Zionists reasonably decided to express their Jewish pride both religiously and as a nation by embracing Hitler as grand posek? Clearly, for their time, the Zionist Entity did the right thing, just…Jewish history took an unpredictable turn, and this ostensibly reasonable choice for an ultimate Jewish authority proved to have shortcomings…but you can’t blame the impeccable reasoning of the Zionists for its time.