Daphne Anson: So Stop With The JAP Nonsense Already

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday, 13 October 2013

So Stop With The JAP Nonsense Already

The "greedy Jew" stereotype comes in many guises

It's all there, in this now infamous London wedding video by an antisemitic cameraman and his assistant: the assumption that all Jews are rich, the assumption that all Jews are miserly, the assumption that Jews regard themselves as superior to others (that old "Chosen People" misunderstanding again, huh?), the sexist evaluation of women based on their looks (or lack of them) regardless of the attractiveness (or not) of the men who do the evaluating.

Now that he has been exposed in the antisemitic act, the video cameraman who was caught out, along with his Asian assistant, making derogatory comments about Jews in general and Jewish women in particular, has apologised for what he and his sidekick said, but quite understandably the bride who, along with her wedding party, Anthony Aurelius insulted, is not having a bar of it.

Reports the Jewish Chronicle:

'At one point on the unedited reel, after guests were dancing to Siman Tov UMazel Tov, Mr Aurelius was heard to say: “Mental, Israeli dancing, isn’t it? There’s a real feeling of like, they’re better than everybody else. Jewish.”

"I don’t think I blame Hitler for Holocaust"

His assistant said: “That’s why Holocaust.”

Mr Aurelius replied: “I don’t think I blame Hitler,” as he filmed the bride from only a few feet away.

Earlier, Mr Aurelius had accidentally left the camera running in the back seat of his car as he followed the wedding party from the Central Synagogue to the hotel, 8 Northumberland Avenue.

The lens captured buildings and streetlamps as they made their way through the capital.

But the microphone picked up the conversation between him and his assistant, who said it was his first Jewish ceremony.

Mr Aurelius told his assistant that Jews think “they’re better than everybody else because they’re from Israel.

“Not a lot of niceness about them is there? Very little warmth.” He went on: “They’ve never been respected anyway, these people, and they’ve never respected themselves.”

"Jewish women are beautiful, but cows"

His assistant said: “They are the meanest people in the world, I know very well.”

Mr Aurelius said he was distracted by female guests whilst filming the chuppah.

“Some of the Jewish women are very beautiful to look at, but I can tell you, they’d be right f***ing cows. Very f***ing snooty, they’d be a pain in the arse.

“Not a very attractive bride at all.”'

But aren't some Jews themselves to blame for the kind of antisemitism which heaps age-old stereotypes of Jews, especially Jews and and money, onto the female of the species?

I'm referring to the JAP ("Jewish American/Australian Princess") stereotype which began as a not-very-funny joke some thirty years or so ago and is now a commonplace in Jewish journalism, imbibed and spewed out again by male and, sadly, female, journalists who should know better: Jewish women are shallow, ostentatious, materialistic, selfish, and snobbish. This wretched nonsense feeds the very prejudice that is otherwise deplored. But it would appear that many Jews are happy with the stereotype, so long as only women are depicted that way.

Can we really be surprised that intermarriage rates in the United States in particular are now at an all-time high that threatens Jewish survival when Jewish men are encouraged by the JAP nonsense to perceive Jewish women in this insulting fashion? There are of course many reasons for the soaring American intermarriage rate (one is that Jews go away to college, unlike the situation in Australia, where Jews, like other young people, attend university in their home city and live with their parents, thus preserving cultural influences and the bonds of friendships already made). But is it any wonder that for many American Jewish men, conscious of the JAP image, a non-Jewish bride is seen as preferable to a supposedly high-maintenance Jewish one?

The call for an end to this damaging antisemitic stereotype is nothing new; the New York Times reported in 1987:

'[A]t the American Jewish Committee's Conference on Current Stereotypes of Jewish Women last week, concerned Jews said it was time to stop laughing.While the jokes may seem innocuous, according to Susan Weidman Schneider and other speakers, they represent a resurgence of sexist and anti-Semitic invective masking what Ms. Schneider called a ''scrim of misogyny.''

''What had started as humor has escalated into attacks,'' said Ms. Schneider, editor of the Jewish feminist magazine Lilith.

''There is nothing funny about a putdown of Jewish women that has become a generic term for materialism, self-indulgence, loudness and so on,'' said Francine Klagsbrun, the author of ''Married People: Staying Together in an Age of Divorce'' (Bantam, 1985). ''We are eating away at our own community.''

The conference in New York was held to address the prevalence of the Jewish-American princess, or JAP, stereotype on college campuses, television commercials and greeting cards, and to consider how it affects society's perspective on Jewish women and their image of themselves.

''Imagine for a moment that you are an 18-year-old female Jewish student at a college football game,'' said Ms. Schneider. ''And when you get up to get a soda you hear someone yell, 'JAP! JAP! JAP!' Then the cry is picked up by everybody sitting in the stadium.'' ....

....Sherry M. Merfish, a lawyer who is co-chairwoman of the women's issues committee of the American Jewish Committee's chapter in Houston, said greeting cards provide ''a graphic illustration of the pervasiveness of the Jewish-American princess stereotype, as well as how it has been popularized for public consumption.''

Ms. Merfish displayed a greeting card in which five Olympic Games rings are represented by five diamond rings, and a girl wearing a Star of David jumps over a hurdle in high heels toward a clearance sale, while filing her nails. The text of the card is about ''cross-country kvetching,'' a ''chutzpah-thon'' and defines kvetching as ''an irritating whine made by a spoiled 3-year-old, or a Jewish-American princess at any age.''....

Although such characterizations may be intended in fun, said Ms. Schneider, the consequences must be taken seriously. ''Jewish women's self-esteem is being critically damaged by the stereotypes,'' she said. To escape these labels, Ms. Schneider said, young women especially often try to distance themselves from their Jewish identity.

In addition, Ms. Klagsbrun said, the jokes interfere with romantic relationships between Jewish women and Jewish men, and inhibit coalition-building between Jewish and non-Jewish women. ''Why do we women label other women JAPS?'' asked Ms. Klagsbrun. ''It reflects our insecurities and self-doubts. We are setting ourselves apart from the others and that is a form of self-hatred.''

The term, Ms. Merfish said, connotes idleness and dependency, and is not only derogatory but old-fashioned, undermining women's recent ambition and achievements. ''It flies in the face of Jewish women who have contributed so much,'' she said. [Emphasis added]'

Admittedly, there are shallow, ostentatious, materialistic, selfish and snobbish Jewish women.

But there are also shallow, ostentatious, materialistic, selfish and snobbish Jewish men.

A young friend of mine, a gung-ho supporter of Israel, encountered the type at local United Jewish Appeal functions he attended as a student, when he was cold-shouldered by much of the gathering because his parents were not among the wealthy machers in the community. Now a small businessman, well-integrated into his retail community in a largely Jewish neighbourhood, he encountered that attitude again, after he was approached by a friend who's a UIA representative to sponsor an event. He was delighted to add his name (and his financial contribution, of course) to the list of sponsors, only to be told by his embarrassed and apologetic friend a few days later that his sponsorship was not wanted by the UIA as (according to the higher-ups in that body) he's not well-known enough (whatever that means!). Imagine that! Is it any wonder that the small businessman concerned, perplexed and offended, has vowed that if he ever becomes a big businessman he will pointedly line the coffers of any organisation but the UIA?

2 comments:

Anonymous14 October 2013 at 00:24
Interestingly I attended that AJC conference and when I stood up and spoke saying that the issue is not anti-Jewish women as much as we are not teaching our children to be proud of their Jewish heritage and its antisemitism in general. I was insultingly dismissed by the panel. (Yes I remember it all these years later because it was done in a terribly degrading manner.) Later another conference attendee came up to me and said I should actually speak about the JAP phenomenon on campuses because I come across very intelligent and actually look stereotypically JAPPY. So I countermand the nasty stereotype of the JAP.

I still to this day think the panel dismissed me because of how I looked. They did not bother to find out that I had a law degree from a prestigious university and that I was an active in the organized Jewish community since childhood. (I have since abandoned my activism on behalf of the US Jewish community for any number of reasons. this being one of them.)

By the way, so-called feminists have not changed in all these decades. They still denigrate anyone who doesn't fit their idea of what an intelligent woman looks like and they with their blatant antisemitism is more of a problem than any ignorant member of the public.

http://usa2mom.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/celebrating-sexy-jewish-women-beyond-being-a-woman-of-valor/
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

DISCLAIMER

Commenters are kindly requested to avoid posting material which violates or infringes the rights of others (including their privacy and publicity rights, or which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy, vulgar, obscene, profane or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to, or incite hatred of, any person.
The opinions expressed by posters of comments on the Daphne Anson blog are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Daphne Anson. Daphne Anson is not responsible for the content of the comments.
This blog's posts sometimes include links to other websites. Such linked websites will have their own terms and conditions of use and commenters are advised to familiarise themselves with them.
The Daphne Anson blog
* does not sponsor, endorse or necessarily approve of any material posted on this website or on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations regarding the quality, accuracy, merchantability or fitness for purpose of any material on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations that material on other websites to which this website is linked does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any person anywhere in the world;
* does not authorise the infringement of any intellectual property rights contained in material in other websites by linking this website to those other websites.