(RNS) — You understand how individuals have their delighted locations?
For some individuals, it’s the corner saloon, the stogie bar or the golf course.
Me? It’s a bookshop — particularly an independent bookshop.
I love them — the books, the concepts that hang thick in the air, the individuals. The individuals who work in those bookshops are, themselves, readers. You satisfy fascinating individuals in those bookshops; I am pleased to state that some of my sweetest and most withstanding relationships have began, and haveactually been sustained, in those spiritual locations.
So, you can just thinkof my discouragement when I found that a bookshop hadactually endedupbeing an unwitting website of antisemitism.
Yes — antisemitism — the antisemitism of the cool, the trendy, the cultured, the lovely individuals.
It occurred at the Powerhouse bookshop in Brooklyn’s DUMBO area. The shop, which is likewise an independent publishing home, hadactually arranged an occasion marking the publication of Joshua Leifer’s brand-new book, “Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life.” The mediator for the book talk was to haveactually been Rabbi Andy Bachman, speakingwith Joshua about his book.
And then, a bookshop worker canceled Rabbi Bachman. Why? To quote the worker: “The mediator that your publishing group sourced is a Zionist, and we wear’t desire a Zionist onstage.” No Rabbi Bachman, and no book occasion. It, too, was canceled.
In the wake of this mess, the worker was dismissed from her task and the bookshop desires to reschedule the occasion.
Let’s simply drill down on what tookplace here.
First, the author, Joshua Leifer. He is definitely on the left side of the Jewish political and Zionist spectrum, calling himself an “anti-occupation Jew.”
Then, Rabbi Bachman.
His Zionism likewise leans relatively . To quote what he informed The New York Times: “I’m not a territorial maximalist. My Zionism needs that we likewise acknowledge Palestinian declares on a nationwide homeland. I think in sharing the land. Full stop. Period.”
Rabbi Bachman’s variation of Zionism must haveactually been appropriate in most leftist enclaves in America.
But, no. As Rabbi Bachman himself keptinmind: “The just appropriate Jew in this motion is the Jew who does not think that Israel must exist.”
Rabbi Bachman got that . As a matter of reality, the frustrating bulk of our rabbinical coworkers are Zionists, and/or hold Bachman-like viewpoints about Israel.
Ergo, no rabbi would haveactually been acceptable to speak at that bookshop. And by extension, the huge bulk of American Jews, who assistance Israel, would haveactually been undesirable speakers as well.
QED.
That is why this event is antisemitic. People get to state that particular Jews are appropriate, and particular Jews are not — that specific kinds of Judaism are appropriate and particular kinds of Judaism are not. Zionism, no matter what its taste, is in th