aNewDomain.net — Jon Stewart has recently had a lot to say about his Jewish identity. He’s fighting back, calling his right-wing Jewish critics “fascistic.” And no, he’s not trying to be funny. In my view, Stewart refuses to be a part of of what I call the “ghetto without walls”, which many of his Jewish critics live in. A clear example:
“Conservative radio host Mark Levin is attacking Jon Stewart for his comments on Israel and Gaza, accusing him of being self-loathing and “a knee-jerk idiot.”
Screenshot by David Michaelis
At the Toronto International film Festival Stewart said,
“It’s so interesting to me that people want to define who is a Jew and who is not. And normally that was done by people who weren’t Jewish but apparently now it’s done by people who are, and I find that very interesting. It’s more than nationalism.”
Jon Stewart has come under fire for his comic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Watch the video below to see how he makes fun of the outrage he created.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrlUzkd8Z8g]
Video: Jon Stewart Learns What Happens When You Criticize Israel
Stewart on his critics
Jon Stewart lashed out even more at the film festival:
“I mean, you would not believe the shit. You have guys on television saying I’m a Jew like the Jews in the Nazi camps who helped bring the other Jews to ovens. I have people that I lost in the Holocaust and I just … go fuck yourself. How dare you?”
Mainstream Jewish voices try to kill and censor any opinion that does not fit the Israel mythology. They are afraid of any breaking of the ranks because what happens the ghetto should stay in the ghetto. No, not really, Israel is not Las Vegas — but the question it evokes is what are those fervent Jewish supporters trying to hide?. Why is open debate about right wing Israeli actions banned in Synagogues and other Jewish forums.?
Stewart is on the right track: the walls of the ghetto need to come down! An open debate and satire is the soul of open media. Stewart portrays that wonderfully, and he’s famous for it, but the moment he criticized Israel, as a Jew, he was blasted. The basic challenge seems to be that “you can get the Jew out of the ghetto,but you can not get the ghetto out of the Jew,” as the late President of Israel Ezer Weizman once told me.
This is the phenomenon that Jon Stewart is encountering, and it’s clear he has no intention of changing his mind.
Hey Jon, maybe you are the one who can get the Ghetto out of the USA Jews?
For aNewDomain.net, I’m David Michaelis.
Featured Image: “Rally to restore sanity and/or fear” by Cliff via Flickr Creative Commons
