Friday, October 13, 2017

The Tablet: "The Specifically Jewy Perviness of Harvey Weinstein"

In recent days, US media has been flooded with allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein.

Given that I'm the author of Bieganksi: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture, I wanted to see how much these accusations would be taken up by anti-Semites and interwoven with traditional images of Jews as sexual predators.

Given that the standard stereotype of Jews in the West depicts Jewish men as being less manly – Jews read, Jews write, Jews, stereotypically, don't fight with their fists – it may seem odd that Jews would be depicted as sexual predators, but they have been.

A hundred years ago, Jews were disproportionally represented in international sex trafficking. A good book on this topic is Edward W. Bristow's Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery, 1870-1939.

The Forward ran a piece on the anti-Semitic alt-right pouncing on the Weinstein story. The Forward story begins,

"White supremacists on the 'alt-right' are gleefully jumping on accusations that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed employees and actresses for decades as 'evidence' of their anti-Semitic worldview.

Pointing to Weinstein, some on the far right say his story illustrates that Jews have a perverse and degenerative effect on American society — and are contributing to the 'downfall of the white race.'

'Harvey Weinstein story … is a case study in the corrosive nature of Jewish domination of our media and cultural industries,' David Duke … wrote on his website. Duke devoted two separate podcasts, each over an hour long, to Weinstein's career-long 'assault on American culture.' 'It's really shocking that this Jewish pervert could be revealed to be a Jewish pervert,' Duke said with sarcasm."

I did not expect a Jewish publication to identify Weinstein's crimes as specifically Jewish, but the Tablet has done so.

The Tablet relates Weinstein's despicable and criminal assaults to Philip Roth's writing.

"As a boy, Portnoy fantasized about attaining a mythical shiksa goddess whom he nicknamed Thereal McCoy (get it?), who ice-skates 'in her blue parka and her red earmuffs and her big white mittens—Miss America, on blades! With her mistletoe and her plum pudding (whatever that may be),' but as a grown-up he graduates to the real woman he nicknames The Monkey. And what does he do to abase her? He has her perform with an Italian whore. Yes, he eventually joins in, but not before they enact a bad movie—not Hollywood, but San Fernando Valley triple-X. And his nickname for her, The Monkey? That comes from an episode in her life, from before Portnoy met her, when a couple swingers picked her up and wanted her to eat a banana while she watched them copulate. For having a past that gets him hot, she gets degraded with an animalistic nickname …

Harvey is cut from the same cloth. Growing up in Queens, he fantasized of fame and fortune … he harassed women not necessarily to use them as instruments of his pleasure, but to use them as instruments of his power.

It goes without saying that nearly every one of these women—Rose McGowan, Ambra Batillana, Laura Madden, Ashley Judd, etc.—was a Gentile, all the better to feed Weinstein’s revenge-tinged fantasy of having risen above his outer-borough, bridge-and-tunnel Semitic origins."

Here's the thing.

Stereotyping Harvey Weinstein's crimes as "Jewish" crimes has been rapidly and powerfully condemned. Society recognizes that stereotypes of Jews are dangerous and society acts on that knowledge.

Stereotyping Poles as Bieganski is standard operating procedure. See previous post in this blog. Some Polish Catholics prayed the rosary, and they were roundly and internationally condemned as dangerous, racist, ignorant, violent, backward bigots.

Shylock Bad.

Bieganski Good.

And only Polonia can change that – and Polonia is doing nothing to change it.

You can read the full Tablet piece here.

You can read a subsequent apology here

The Forward objects, as do many other press organs. See one piece here.

Fox News posted an article arguing that Harvey Weinstein is an embarrassment for Jews. You can read that article here

4 comments:

  1. This blog post is about stereotypes of Jews as sexual predators.

    This blog post is NOT an endorsement of stereotypes of Jews as sexual predators.

    Someone just attempted to post a message that looks like an endorsement of the stereotype of Jews as sexual predators, and contained a link to outside material I have no time to vet.

    I will not post that message or any other message that endorses stereotypes of Jews as sexual predators.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have reviewed the autobiography of Phillip Roth as well as Portnoy's Complaint. (To see them, please click on my name in this specific posting, and then also read the first comment therein.)

    Phillip Roth reports that he was once visited by the ADL about complaints that he, being Jewish himself, is promoting negative stereotypes of Jews.

    As for the character Portnoy, he is not merely engaging in adolescent fantasies and poking fun at what he considers archaic Jewish ways. He is in open rebellion against God, and he throws-in a Polonophobic remark to boot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He throws in Polonophobic remark... de rigeur perhaps? And actually it might be lot more distressing to be approved of by Philip Roth.

      Delete
  3. About the comments section of this blog.

    I believe in free speech. There is some moderation, but it is minor.

    If you read something in the comments section which you find objectionable, *you* have a right -- no you have a duty -- to address it.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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