How Can I Fight Anti-semitism?

 "I never thought that in 2018 I would still have to speak about antisemitism", says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

What happened to these decades where there was so much conversation about inclusion and social justice for everyone? What happened to the laws against hate crimes? I thought we had progressed beyond anti-semitism.

In March of this year an 85 year old Holocaust survivor in Paris was murdered because she was a Jew.

In May of 2017, the Globe and Mail reported "B'nai Brith Canada, which has been tracking anti-Semitic incidents for 35 years, said 1,728 anti-Semitic incidents were reported across the country last year — a 26 per cent increase from 2015 and the highest number the group has ever recorded." 

I had believed that Muslims were more at risk, however, in 2014, the FBI reported 609 incidents of hate crimes against Jews and 154 against Muslims.   Even Snopes reports more attacks against Jews than Muslims. 

Like bullying everywhere, a division is created and the majority beats up the minority by words or by silence. The after dinner conversation in what I think of as a civilized home is not about how to fix any given social problem. It's about who can be blamed without making anyone in the room feel uncomfortable. It was only much later in my life that I could see this as an acquiescence to prejudice. As one of my relatives said when I expressed concern about racism - well that's life I'm afraid.

Now we talk about injustice on social media which also allows anonymous commenters to harass, abuse and threaten minorities, and women who tackle these issues.

Writing about the recent attack in Toronto where a young man ran down pedestrians in a rented white van - Nora Loreto warns we must not overlook misogyny and social conditions as part of the cause. "We live in a society where our collectivity has been undermined in every way possible, and the Greater Toronto Area is ground zero for how we have been ravaged by forces that seek to drive average people into the ground."

The connection between the different groups who are targeted is the young white man. The previously privileged majority whose future has bottomed out.

But the question remains how can I (a white woman) fight anti-semitism without diminishing the dignity of the Jews who are vastly more educated and engaged in civil society than I am? Can I help or should I let the experts deal with this?   

 Self interrogation is a start but doesn't keep thugs from defacing synagogues and cemeteries.  I can listen  to the souls who are homeless and jobless, who can't find a place to belong but that won't help the unarmed women and men who are murdered as they walk home. 

I can examine the use and abuse of power to link antisemitism with our systemic habits of expressing contempt for life by glorifying hegemony and war. I can argue respectfully with white supremacists on facebook. I can look strangers in the eye and know they have a right be here just like me. I can support environmental and socially progressive groups with funds. I can eschew those who promote privilege by association and creating class divides. 

There is a border that I must defend and it's not against people from different countries but against beliefs that make life a resource to be exploited.

People who cannot earn a living wage, who can't access health services, who have nowhere to live, who are treated like objects, who cannot get justice when they have been harmed, who are marginalized by their sexual orientation, who are judged by their religion or skin colour, are victims of a system which diminishes humanity and although no-one can fix this within one lifetime it is the vigilance we are obliged to keep. It is the duty of all within the human race to fight antisemitism and all the other bigotries.

How Toxic Masculinity Shackles Men to Misogyny

"Boys and young men are so routinely expected to betray their better natures, to smother their consciences, to renounce the best of themselves and submit to something low and mean. As if there’s only one way of being a bloke, one valid interpretation of the part, the role, if you like. There’s a constant pressure to enlist, to pull on the uniform of misogyny and join the Shithead Army that enforces and polices sexism. And it grieves me to say it’s not just men pressing those kids into service." About the Boys, Tim Winton.

"What are we left with?" asks Winton. If you are not part of a culture that celebrates coming of age into adulthood then the rite of passage is about drinking beer and getting laid. 

Political climates now reveal that nothing else is expected of a man but to be one of the boys. Which I think means non-judgement, right or wrong, of the tribe. What's said or done in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse. 

You can understand how the instinctive feeling of reflection or self-questioning would be seen as high-treason girlishness. 

School bullies, alpha males, can rely on absolute loyalty beyond the point of torture, to death. The witch hunts, the gang rape, the ridicule of women's bodies, all demand loyalty to the group.

No matter how violent or hurtful the words or the acts, the policies or the demands - no-one must be allowed to comment or judge.

But this sounds fine for Chimpanzees, Ghengis Khan's army or the Mafia, however,  whether we like it or not, our brains have evolved. This is why PTSD is so prevalent. Winton points out how boys are punished for having a conscience, how they must not under any circumstances say what they feel or even acknowledge what they feel. 

Women also learn to do this too if they want to stay employed in the group. It looks like this is an example of how power works in our society. 

In this age of nuclear weapons, pollution, endless wars and inequality, it is a disaster, another disaster waiting to happen.  

On the grave of our humanity we could write "forgive them Mother - they knew not what they were doing".

Worship of Power As Shared Mental Illness

A study reported in the Telegraph, written by Martin Evans, claims "The children of rich parents are put under so much pressure to succeed they are at an increased risk of suffering" ...   from anxiety and depression at twice the normal rate of children from less well off families. Eating disorders, drug abuse, neuroses and self harming were found to be much more common among wealthy teenagers.

We are led to believe  that wealth signifies skill, intelligence or talent, and wealth "proves"  success. This manifests within the psyche of offspring a duty to prove their academic or athletic superiority, otherwise they are letting their family down. Relentless pressure can be applied while parents are unaware of how it impacts their child's health.

"The American psychologist who carried out the study said many children were finding it impossible to live up to the expectations being placed on them by their rich and successful parents."

Sheri Johnson, a Berkeley psychologist and senior author of a study published in the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice found the motivation to pursue power needs to be considered.

What are the emotional issues around the pro-social and aggressive strategies for attaining personal power? "Studies have long established that feelings of powerlessness and helplessness weaken the immune system, making one more vulnerable to physical and mental ailments". On the other end of the spectrum, an inflated sense of power signals a narcissistic personality disorder which is harmful to those who must live and work with them. Socially and personally corrosive, power can be toxic. Dominance Behaviour, December 9, 2014. Berkely News.

In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky argues that the socio-economic elite who control the United States have pursued a strategy to maintain global hegemony since the end of the second World War, at the expense of democracy and human rights. Hence, the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction which now threatens the existence of the human species. 

Do all great civilizations feel compelled to prove their superiority through their weapons of power? Are Russia, the EU, China, and Syria, all competing for that global status of the number one ruler? 

Are we all suffering somewhere on the spectrum between powerlessness and narcissism? Are we affected by the expectations of our national identity? If  'Make America Great' or 'Rule Britannia' is the call within our deep sub-conscious, how can we defend ourselves from propaganda and paranoia?

The internalization of power as a primary measure of worth will ultimately turn us into victims or murderers. Unless we examine the costings of our planetary health and the part we can play in defending that, we doom our grand-children to an everlasting war within and among ourselves.

George Monbiot on What Makes Us Human

Selfishness and greed are not what we are about. Science says empathy, kindness and community spirit is what makes us human.

We need others, we are fragile, we love community. It's only some of our leaders who are grabbing and selfish.

Listen to this recording in his own words.

Date and Plum Muffins (no sugar)

1 cup organic rolled oats 
1 cup water

6 medjool pitted dates chopped

6 prunes chopped

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 tsp of turmeric

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp ginger

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup organic white flour

1/3 cup broken walnuts

2 eggs

1 cup full fat yogurt

1/3 cup grape seed oil

Put oats in pan with 1 cup water. Add chopped dates and prunes. Simmer for 20 minutes until water is almost absorbed. Add half a cup of water and continue to simmer until oats are soft.

In a bowl add flour, mix in spices and baking soda. Add and mix broken walnuts. Add oat mixture, yogurt and oil. Blend together. Add eggs breaking up yolks into whites and blend into the muffin mixture thoroughly but not in a mixer or fast mixing blender.

Spoon into paper lined muffin cups. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

These muffins are made like a breakfast without sugar, although dates and plums are high in glycemic sweetness,  I think they may be still better for you than the store bought muffins. As well as the organic oats there's the added protein of eggs, walnuts and yogurt. 

I don't count calories but I do count carbs so would only have one of these muffins for breakfast or snack. It is food at least.

Community and the Disposessed

“The gun culture permits a dispossessed public, sheared of economic and political power, to buy a firearm and revel in feelings of omnipotence. A gun reminds Americans that they are divine agents of purification, anointed by God and Western civilization to remake the world in their own image."  Chris Hedges, Truthdig.

Any time someone talks about the benefit of community there is a paid-for backlash that laughs at our attempts to do what is healthy for humanity and its environment.

How did this come to be?  Young children see the world through their own lives and observations, but somewhere along the way we dare not express our selves and feed back what we think is expected of us.

"Each culture tends to construct its worldview on a root metaphor of the universe, which in turn defines people’s relationship to nature and each other, ultimately leading to a set of values that directs how that culture behaves. It’s those culturally derived values that have shaped history." Jeremy Lent. Culture Shift.

But capitalist, fascist, or communist cultures are shaped to serve the prescribed ideology - a worship of kings and emperors and the power they wield, along with the court jester who represents the peasantry, the workers, the poor.

Most people do not want to gun down children in a school, nor do they want to stand up for their beliefs and risk being ridiculed as naive. Most people want to live in their private world known only by family and friends. But even this can leave them feeling lonely if they are unable to speak of who they are.

George Monbiot reports "A remarkable experiment (done in Fore, Somerset) suggests that emergency admissions to hospital can be reduced by tackling loneliness."  

There have been other studies that indicate we are healthier when we have community. The sad thing is that people who peddle the toxic machismo are drawn to a promise of omnipotence no matter how destructive that is.

How can we raise our children to deal with this? By encouraging them to honour their own talents rather than feel they must be at the top. By living as though kindness matters - because as I age I have seen that it does. That is the kind of vigilance asked of parents and citizens.

The Want - a glosa based on Rilke's poem

I want to unfold.

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

and I want my grasp of things to be

“I am too alone in the world,” Rainer Maria Rilke

To unfold a letter you take two fingers

two thumbs and open the page

straighten it out to find its secret

symbols you have learned to read

the soul’s cravings turning inward

then onto the shining page you hold

pressing it down and wide

undoing the creases carefully

saying in your tense oval mould

I want to unfold.

As the letter needs to be open

to be understood so I must risk

that openness. Must imposing itself

like a scolding woman, the goddess

chained to a rock tireless but trapped

her tongue hung out in a capitalist lair

and I learned how to silence her cries

silencing my own in games of thrones

determined to open new wounds everywhere

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere.

I want to escape the ritual killing

to be a vegan spirit and yet inside there

a drive to unpack and peel back all secrets

coursing through those ancient veins

cruel vivisection, cut and open, examine

my tribe’s howling animal cry

and not be content with shallow abstracts

like peace and justice but a deepening quest

for the menacing how, what, where and why

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

Almost broken into the drunken nice

the easy to digest pervasive pablum

the democratic flag, the smiley, the clever

digging down to the day we chained nature

to the mind trending new memories yet missing

the whole point of our glorious anthropology

and missing the reason for the search, turning

away from the evidence accusing me

slowing the blood and heart not wanting to see

and I want my grasp of things to be.

(from Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016. Cover image is a painting by Paul Grignon)