Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Phyllis Chesler's avatar

From Substack:

Very dear Phyllis,

Bless your kind and ever-watchful heart & mind! I well remember talking my temple into inviting you to speak on “The New Anti-Semitism” — how many years ago now? Despite attempts to prevent or even rescind the invitation once it had been issued (& accepted!) — we succeeded that time! Our then rabbi told me that his congregants don’t like to hear about anti-semitism “because they feel that they are guests here!” Which tells us that habits of denial (and premature resignation) die hard.

How to get to the bottom of all this? How — somehow — to upend it? Any pretext seems as good as any other, for starting it up again! I can easily picture a world without anti-semitism. Why can’t the anti-semites envision such a world? What does it (this hatred) do for them? It’s not a beauty treatment! (They get much uglier from it.)

There’s a book I just finished reading, Trauma and Memory: Brain & Body in a Search for the Living Past by Peter A. Levine. It reports evidence that the children & grandchildren of Holocaust victims could have inherited their grandparents’ memories in a quasi-biological fashion. According to Levine, there is a treatment even for inherited traumas. He doesn’t deal with the question of whether there is such a treatment for inherited traumatizers. If there were, it would sure be worth knowing about!

Anyway, please stay well!!!

Barbara Panken's avatar

Will we recognize the danger and act to repel? Probably not. The haters will continue to amplify their hatred and the rest will continue to repeat stupid statements…. No room for hate, antisemitism has no place here. It’s time to protect ourselves!

19 more comments...

No posts

Ready for more?