superfantango
29-01-2010, 02:06 AM
This is a really good film, worth a watch.
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/26/yoav-shamirs-defamation/#more-19573
Yoav Shamir’s memorable, must-see Defamation is by turns hilarious and disturbing. It recently aired on the UK’s Channel 4 True Stories series.
Shamir seeks to investigate whether Judeophobia really exists to anything near the levels the ADL (Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith) claims to combat. This takes him to the US, Israel, Russia, Poland and to several interesting encounters and interviews. In addition to the film’s mainstay shadowing of Abe Foxman to several locations, these include Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, David Hirsch* and Uri Avnery. Then there’s the smart Rabbi Hecht who contends that Foxman propagates ‘anti Semitism’ “because he makes a living from it … he has to create a problem because he needs a job” (around 31 minute mark) and the couple who admit that the ADL provides them with a forum to explore Jewish identity (44 minute mark).
What is most striking however is the active propagation of fear and threats inside Israel: the brainwashing of the teenagers is extraordinary. They are inculcated to see discrimination where none exists. What we see is a dangerously bellicose culture. More than this, the film points to the consequences of a chauvinist (and, though not explored here, supremacist) ideology in which Jewish ethnic campaigners like Foxman promote a Jewish identity around the dangerous notion of being always ethnically hated and defamed. The positive outcome is that Defamation ridicules this notion, though it does so indirectly. It challenges Jews to look to the future rather than to a highly selective and toxic representation of the past.
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/26/yoav-shamirs-defamation/#more-19573
Yoav Shamir’s memorable, must-see Defamation is by turns hilarious and disturbing. It recently aired on the UK’s Channel 4 True Stories series.
Shamir seeks to investigate whether Judeophobia really exists to anything near the levels the ADL (Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith) claims to combat. This takes him to the US, Israel, Russia, Poland and to several interesting encounters and interviews. In addition to the film’s mainstay shadowing of Abe Foxman to several locations, these include Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, David Hirsch* and Uri Avnery. Then there’s the smart Rabbi Hecht who contends that Foxman propagates ‘anti Semitism’ “because he makes a living from it … he has to create a problem because he needs a job” (around 31 minute mark) and the couple who admit that the ADL provides them with a forum to explore Jewish identity (44 minute mark).
What is most striking however is the active propagation of fear and threats inside Israel: the brainwashing of the teenagers is extraordinary. They are inculcated to see discrimination where none exists. What we see is a dangerously bellicose culture. More than this, the film points to the consequences of a chauvinist (and, though not explored here, supremacist) ideology in which Jewish ethnic campaigners like Foxman promote a Jewish identity around the dangerous notion of being always ethnically hated and defamed. The positive outcome is that Defamation ridicules this notion, though it does so indirectly. It challenges Jews to look to the future rather than to a highly selective and toxic representation of the past.