Success came with an unspoken condition: Contribute everywhere, quietly. But over time, that bargain blurred Jewish identity into the background until others began rewriting our story entirely.
For sure there were actors who changed their names to hide identities. ( Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, et Al.)
But where I grew up in silver spring, MD, with many Holocaust survivors, the Jews built large synagogues, Jewish community centers, schools, etc. We put our Chanukiyot in the windows and our mezuzot on our doorposts.
We had multiple kosher butchers and book stores. We attended large rallies for Soviet Jewry and in support of Israel.
Now in my city of Baltimore we have the same.
The big difference is that now we have armed security guards at the door of the shul.
Not everything that wasn’t explicitly Jewish was about Jews “hiding.” Jews are a tiny minority—if you want a movie, a show, or a story to succeed, you make it broader so more people can relate to it. That’s not erasure, that’s reality.
Take Seinfeld. Everybody knew they were Jewish. The humor, the culture, the references—it was all there. But it was universal enough that people in the Midwest connected to it too. That’s why it worked.
Same with actors changing their names or stories being adapted. That wasn’t always about shame or suppression. It was about building something that could reach a wider audience. Every immigrant group has done that in one way or another.
I think sometimes we’re reading too much into it. Yes, there were moments in history where people felt pressure to fit in—but a lot of what you’re describing here is just smart storytelling and basic economics, not some grand effort to erase Jewish identity.
My experience with Seinfeld suggests that its humour was not as universal as you think, Frederick. Way back then, I played in a pick-up hockey game on Thursday nights and lots of us were Jewish. The game was later in the evening after Seinfeld had aired and, as we went over all the funny shtick of that night’s show, some of the non-Jewish guys would just shake their heads as they acknowledged that they just didn’t ‘get’ the show. Sometimes, in-jokes are just in-jokes.
Teddy, I absolutely agree with you. Some of them were very much in-jokes.
But I meant, all in all, the author was talking about the cross and all that. It was just to be inclusive, that's all. Of course, that's strictly my opinion.
Seinfeld is probably the most "Jewish" television series ever. I remember back in the day reading an article comparing the sensibility of Cheers and Seinfeld. Cheers was goishe. Seinfeld was Jewish.
Paul, I think you’re partly right—but not on the Italians.
British identity didn’t carry the same pressure, agreed. But Italians absolutely did face assimilation pressure in North America. Names were shortened, Anglicized, or changed entirely. Accents were softened. People tried to blend in—especially in earlier generations when prejudice was real.
So this wasn’t uniquely Jewish. It was something a lot of immigrant groups went through, just in different ways and to different degrees.
Paul, many Italians absolutely did assimilate and Anglicize parts of their identity, especially in earlier generations. Not every family did, of course, but it definitely happened.
You can find endless examples in entertainment alone—stage names, shortened surnames, softened accents, even hiding ethnicity to appeal to a broader audience. That was common among many immigrant groups, not just Jews.
And yes, Fiddler on the Roof being successful in Japan actually proves part of the point: universal storytelling reaches beyond one group. That’s exactly why creators often broadened themes instead of making things narrowly ethnic.
My point was never that Jews were uniquely forced to assimilate. My point was that assimilation pressure was part of the immigrant experience for many groups—Italians included.
There’s truth to what you say, and I get that few understand just how tiny of a minority Jewish people are. But then you also have films like the Gentleman’s Agreement, which is supposed to be about discomfort with Judaism, and it still barely dives into what Jewish life actually is.
My Polish American (Catholic) relatives definitely worked hard to become assimilated, and my mom still gets frustrated with how, when she was a girl, everyone who heard her last name made jokes about how she was stupid. I still don’t personally think it ever quite reached the same level, though.
Eleanor, you’re right—and I don’t think people realize just how small a minority Jews actually are. I remember seeing a clip where people were asked how many Jews there are in the world, and even the lowest guesses were tens of millions. In reality, we’re a tiny fraction of that, just very visible in certain fields.
And your point about is fair—it does touch on discomfort around Judaism, but it doesn’t really dive deeply into Jewish life itself. That kind of supports what you’re saying.
I also relate to the assimilation side of this more personally. My mother was Italian, my father was Jewish, and with my Italian relatives there was always this pressure to downplay it—to present ourselves as more “secular,” more blended in. It creates a kind of quiet tension. Not outright denial, but definitely a softening, a hiding around the edges.
So I agree with you—sometimes it’s not about erasing identity as much as navigating it in a world where being different came with consequences.
Just the way the world is. We have our own country now. Also, to add, that Antisemitism when at the top of society, is a cold calculation to steal Jewish property. It is not even hatred, but applied hatred to assist stealing. Yes, we are sensitive about our identity as all immigrant groups are. But the animosity when State-applied from the top, is not even about Jewishness. Just the way the world is.
Maybe a part of it, but I can't help seeing it as a mental health disorder. Why does it seem like those religions with the most animosity toward the Jews are those that arose out of Judaism? And then there's this thing about being "chosen". It's never been clarified, at least for me, what exactly we were chosen for. I have speculated that if in fact the human race was created by extraterrestrials who then taught us how to be human, since just about every indigenous group seems to have a history where they're being taught by "sky people", maybe Yahweh was just the name of the extraterrestrial who "chose"us to mentor. And unfortunately, the Jews were the only ones to write a book about it. Except of course for the Sumerian tablets, but they haven't had the best-seller status of the Bible. Besides there's no Sumerian people to hate.
We Jews were/are chosen by the Creator to be a light unto the nations. To bring Godliness into the world. When you learn Torah, and live according to Torah, it is easier to understand why and how, and easier to do. The shame is that phrase "chosen people" is not understood by so many Jews. Our job is to show by example how to sanctify life, create and maintain a civil and moral society. That's quite the responsibility. Almost "Mission Impossible". But it gives us purpose and goals. Now you know.
I didn't feel unsafe in Seattle. I just never felt accepted. I grew up in NYC and blamed myself for the difficulty I had in finding appropriate employment. I finally realized it probably wasn't me when the Californians started moving there, I think it was the 90's. The vitriol and hatred the Seattleites showed to these newcomers who looked exactly like them, made me realize why I had so much difficulty there. And the coup de grace was a restaurant owner I was friendly with mentioned to me that when he got job applications from people who had grown up in NYC, he just discarded them. I just envisioned all the resumes I had sent out for jobs I was more than qualified for, but never got even a "thank you for applying" from any of them. I live in Boston now and it was easier for me to find meaningful work here at 60 than I ever had in all the years I lived in Seattle. It's not as bad if you're a professional with a business of your own, but I wasn't. It's a beautiful city determined to uglify itself with "progress". I visited there last April and it was unrecognizable, even more pretentious than I remembered. Decent - and affordable - restaurants seemed to be in very short supply. I recall paying $15.00 for a breakfast that consisted of a half sandwich and a cup of coffee. And did I mention how the same newspaper wrote an enraged rant concerning the NY bankers who sought to close in on a balloon payment owed for the Seattle Public Market which included a comment on the "big-nosed" bankers? You could probably research and find both articles. I'm happy in Boston. I live in a beautiful building that dates from the 19th century and have a view that consists of other buildings/residences beautifully constructed in the 19th century. Much better than the creatively challenged boxes that seem to comprise current ideas of architecture and seem to have replaced anything like history in Seattle. Seattle just was not for me. I hope your experience of it is better than mine was. Boston seems - so far - to have been spared the antisemitic virus. Walking down the street one day wearing a tee shirt that said "Curb your antisemitism" I received several positive comments, not one insult.
I’m not Jewish. I did well in school and was exposed to popular culture like many American kids. In college, I befriended some Jewish students and started attending Hillel events.
I felt like a foreign exchange student. So much was new. There was so much to learn.
It does baffle me why so many of us know so little about Judaism and Jewish culture. It’s not as if I had never had Jewish neighbors before college. It makes it harder to understand why no TV sitcom has ever centered a plot around, say, shenanigans at a Purim celebration, for instance.
And yet there are many movies that have been made concerning specific groups of people that have done very well. Remember Boys Town? How many movies about Catholics? About the Puritans, about boxers, football players, about the Black American experience? I think if a movie or play is well-written, well-played, it will attract an audience. After all, many of the best Christmas songs were written by Jews. What I really find amusing is the fact that "Jewish Christmas", going to a movie and a Chinese restaurant on the day was probably popular with Jews as Chiinese restaurants were traditionally the only restaurants open on Christmas. Now, even though Jews are a tiny segment of the population, it's become very difficult to get into a Chinese restaurant on Christmas as they are now packed with people. Not that I don't also relate to your perspective. I lived in Seattle, and I look Jewish. It was very difficult for me there and, at the time I blamed myself. I recall a newspaper article concerning an entire family that was murdered, beaten to death with an iron, parents and two young sons on Christmas Eve, because this particular psychotic assumed them to be Jewish by their name, despite the Christmas tree in their living room. I can't forget the comment in the article in the Seattle Times, the most popular paper at the time, "And the tragedy is they weren't even Jewish".
OMG I am so sorry! I live in Seattle, and it absolutely is rough here. I hadn’t heard of that event or Seattle Times story before, but that is horrific. Hope you are now living somewhere now where you feel safer.
None of the above are Jewish in origin, including and especially JVP. Amnesty has a record of antisemitism as does Human Rights Watch.
The fact that you are bringing this up on an article about Jews in America is 100% the work of those and other organizations to invert the horror committed against Jews.
So good work buying what Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood have been selling for 78 years.
you getting frozen out must have been too much! JVP not Jewish? Amnesty started by a British Jew in the late 50's, not Jewish? I'm not buying anything from Muslims, and look at what the "Occupation" has gotten Israel, the Jewish nation, in the last 77 years.
Jewish Voice for Peace is anything but. It's pro-Hamas and the other organizations regular promote antisemitic talking points. See ADL for a thorough explanation.
So your comment has no basis in reality...free speech..
I looked up the quote, which was "denying the starvation in Gaza is the same as the Holocaust deniers"...... which is a grotesque comparison considering that Israel allowed food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza during an active war not to mention they that there was never any mass starvation, only the usual privations of war. I don't recall the Nazis allowing Jews foreign aid during the Holocaust, so the analogy is meant to shock and smear but falls apart upon analysis.
Also, you have to take into account the person and their history along with their claims: Gideon Levy has long been an enemy of the Israeli govt, he even hates the Labor Party. Its Secretary General, Yehiel Bar, wrote: "Sad, that Levy who used to be a moral compass, became a broken compass: at all time, with no connection to circumstances or reality, Levy's compass points negative, points despair, points irrelevant". Bar added that Levy regards Palestinians as uneducated children who are exempt from any responsibility for their actions.
Gideon Levy's entire purpose now is to provide talking points to Hamas and various other Jew haters and their supporters.
"Israel allowed food," that was promptly stolen by Hamas. The Likud would not allow American marines to make the delivery as that was a secured method. For hasbara, it was necessary.
It is ridiculous to blame Israel because Hamas stole the food aid meant for their own people! They are absolved of all agency and responsibility!!?
And the notion that US Marines would have done this and it was "a secured method" is an insane fiction. The Gaza floating pier collapsed in a few months:
And the same people shrieking about American involvement in the war would have shrieked even louder if American Marines landed and were injured or killed. This is just simplistic hindsight clarity.
But there really are no depths Jew haters won't sink to in order to blame Israel for all the world's evils, even when they're on the receiving end of a massacre.
And regarding the claims of a "genocide, this is from Benny Morris, a well-respected left-wing Israeli historian:
—The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines genocide as the “annihilation of a race”; the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary defines it as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.” Both definitions accurately describe the actions of the Germans and their helpers in Europe during World War II, when some six million Jews were murdered, and of the Muslim Turks in 1894–1924, when some two million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians were butchered.
Nothing like this happened in Gaza in 2023–25. There was widespread destruction of infrastructure and habitation, and around 70,000 Palestinians were killed (the figure includes 15,000-20,000 Hamas combatants). But there was no genocide, no systematic destruction of the population. Indeed, the Gaza Strip’s population seems to have slightly increased over the two-three years in question, when births outstripped deaths. Genocides, of course, result in major reductions of population—after the Holocaust, there were six million fewer Jews; after the Turkish genocide, there were two million fewer Christians.
The non-genocidal nature of IDF actions in Gaza emerges clearly from the Israel Air Force (IAF)’s operations. The bombardments in the Strip were directed at what the IAF and Israeli intelligence believed to be—and generally were—Hamas arms depots, military positions, bases, and hideouts. Each strike was approved by intelligence and legal officers. No doubt mistakes occurred and without doubt many strikes—perhaps most—resulted in the deaths of civilians alongside the targeted Hamasniks, who were embedded among the civilians. But there was no deliberate targeting of civilians. One can accuse the Air Force pilots of having been partly impelled by vengefulness and having been not overly sensitive to causing collateral casualties. But this is not tantamount to the deliberate killing of civilians.
Comparing what happened in Gaza with the actual genocides of the twentieth century reveals stark differences. During the real genocides, inhabitants were not warned of impending assaults; in Gaza, this was the norm. In the Holocaust and in the Turkish genocide, the intended victims were simply rounded up, driven to designated sites, and murdered.
During much of the war, Israel supplied the Gazan population—the majority of whom supported Hamas, sometimes proactively, both before and during the war—with electricity and water and allowed foodstuffs and other provisions to enter the Strip. True, Israel often restricted the entry of foodstuffs in the hope of turning the population against Hamas or of depriving Hamas of the goods that they routinely confiscated and sold to the civilian population, and that this led to malnutrition and even limited pockets of hunger and starvation. And it is true that the IDF’s eventual effort to feed the population itself through the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or to regulate international air drops was largely a failure. Nonetheless, at no stage in the war did the government adopt or implement a policy designed to starve the Gazan population into submission, though a number of former Israeli generals did recommend such a policy.
In sum, during the war in Gaza a large number of Palestinian civilians were killed but there was no genocide, though Hamas and its supporters in the Arab world and in the West ran a very effective propaganda campaign that portrayed Israelis as genocidaires.
look how the culture was destroyed in Gaza...schools ,museums...hospitals totally destroyed and where the poor Pals are living in tents.......that's a clear sign of genocide...just see what the human rights group say and stop being ignorant..
I saw Gideon Levy in a debate. He looks and sounds totally like a Jewish brother, because he is. He’s just more ignorant than he believes about so many things, especially about Torah. His moral eye is diseased, partially blind. Truly a shame.
"Know the Jewish calendar is overflowing with holidays." In the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar every day mentions a Saint or a religious holiday event. When I go to Mass one of those listed are mentioned in the Service. Since both Judaism and Catholicism are ancient religions I'm not surprised at the number of remembrances in both.
I think there is a bare bones of truth to some of this but much of it is twisted, exaggerated or entirely wrong. It is true that Otto Frank edited some of Anne's diary. But it was mostly personal stuff related to her budding sexuality and her relationship with her mother. There is no evidence he removed references to their Jewishness. They were obviously Jewish and everyone who read the diary or saw the play understood exactly why they were hiding. This is a miss. Earlier there is no question that Hollywood sought to downplay Jewishness. But it sought to downplay all ethnicity. The Simchas Torah joke in Top Secret (Which is one of the only things I actually remembered from that film) is funny because the contradiction of having a very goishe Val Kilmer say it is funny. It is why having June Cleaver talk jive is also very funny in Airplane (Same creators)
Please see Cynthia Ozick’s essay in the New Yorker for details on the Jewish references removed from the diary.
No other ethnicity had to downplay their ethnicity for the last 150 years. There was some brief anti-Catholic bias that effectively ended after JFK was elected. There are plenty of movies featuring Italians and Irish. Today, they’ve become another flavor of white person. The same isn’t true for Jews.
Interesting and I agree with the premise although many of the little factoids are wrong. Lillian Hellman (a Jew) glommed onto Otto Frank and convinced him that the diary had to be universalized because that was her point of view. Meir Levin who did not agree wrote a whole book about it. Yes, America has been good to the Jews as long as we weren't too Jewish.
For sure there were actors who changed their names to hide identities. ( Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, et Al.)
But where I grew up in silver spring, MD, with many Holocaust survivors, the Jews built large synagogues, Jewish community centers, schools, etc. We put our Chanukiyot in the windows and our mezuzot on our doorposts.
We had multiple kosher butchers and book stores. We attended large rallies for Soviet Jewry and in support of Israel.
Now in my city of Baltimore we have the same.
The big difference is that now we have armed security guards at the door of the shul.
GOD BLESS ISRAEL AND ITS PEOPLE
I think this article oversimplifies things.
Not everything that wasn’t explicitly Jewish was about Jews “hiding.” Jews are a tiny minority—if you want a movie, a show, or a story to succeed, you make it broader so more people can relate to it. That’s not erasure, that’s reality.
Take Seinfeld. Everybody knew they were Jewish. The humor, the culture, the references—it was all there. But it was universal enough that people in the Midwest connected to it too. That’s why it worked.
Same with actors changing their names or stories being adapted. That wasn’t always about shame or suppression. It was about building something that could reach a wider audience. Every immigrant group has done that in one way or another.
I think sometimes we’re reading too much into it. Yes, there were moments in history where people felt pressure to fit in—but a lot of what you’re describing here is just smart storytelling and basic economics, not some grand effort to erase Jewish identity.
My experience with Seinfeld suggests that its humour was not as universal as you think, Frederick. Way back then, I played in a pick-up hockey game on Thursday nights and lots of us were Jewish. The game was later in the evening after Seinfeld had aired and, as we went over all the funny shtick of that night’s show, some of the non-Jewish guys would just shake their heads as they acknowledged that they just didn’t ‘get’ the show. Sometimes, in-jokes are just in-jokes.
Teddy, I absolutely agree with you. Some of them were very much in-jokes.
But I meant, all in all, the author was talking about the cross and all that. It was just to be inclusive, that's all. Of course, that's strictly my opinion.
Seinfeld is probably the most "Jewish" television series ever. I remember back in the day reading an article comparing the sensibility of Cheers and Seinfeld. Cheers was goishe. Seinfeld was Jewish.
I don't think stories about the British or the Irish or the Italians hid anything.
Paul, I think you’re partly right—but not on the Italians.
British identity didn’t carry the same pressure, agreed. But Italians absolutely did face assimilation pressure in North America. Names were shortened, Anglicized, or changed entirely. Accents were softened. People tried to blend in—especially in earlier generations when prejudice was real.
So this wasn’t uniquely Jewish. It was something a lot of immigrant groups went through, just in different ways and to different degrees.
No Italians i know in Canada ever did what you suggest in your comment. Neither did Fiddler on the Roof which was a huge hit in Japan.
Paul, many Italians absolutely did assimilate and Anglicize parts of their identity, especially in earlier generations. Not every family did, of course, but it definitely happened.
You can find endless examples in entertainment alone—stage names, shortened surnames, softened accents, even hiding ethnicity to appeal to a broader audience. That was common among many immigrant groups, not just Jews.
And yes, Fiddler on the Roof being successful in Japan actually proves part of the point: universal storytelling reaches beyond one group. That’s exactly why creators often broadened themes instead of making things narrowly ethnic.
My point was never that Jews were uniquely forced to assimilate. My point was that assimilation pressure was part of the immigrant experience for many groups—Italians included.
There’s truth to what you say, and I get that few understand just how tiny of a minority Jewish people are. But then you also have films like the Gentleman’s Agreement, which is supposed to be about discomfort with Judaism, and it still barely dives into what Jewish life actually is.
My Polish American (Catholic) relatives definitely worked hard to become assimilated, and my mom still gets frustrated with how, when she was a girl, everyone who heard her last name made jokes about how she was stupid. I still don’t personally think it ever quite reached the same level, though.
Eleanor, you’re right—and I don’t think people realize just how small a minority Jews actually are. I remember seeing a clip where people were asked how many Jews there are in the world, and even the lowest guesses were tens of millions. In reality, we’re a tiny fraction of that, just very visible in certain fields.
And your point about is fair—it does touch on discomfort around Judaism, but it doesn’t really dive deeply into Jewish life itself. That kind of supports what you’re saying.
I also relate to the assimilation side of this more personally. My mother was Italian, my father was Jewish, and with my Italian relatives there was always this pressure to downplay it—to present ourselves as more “secular,” more blended in. It creates a kind of quiet tension. Not outright denial, but definitely a softening, a hiding around the edges.
So I agree with you—sometimes it’s not about erasing identity as much as navigating it in a world where being different came with consequences.
Excellent article. The point that many Jews in American history (if not the world) have put effort into erasing themselves resonates deeply.
Just the way the world is. We have our own country now. Also, to add, that Antisemitism when at the top of society, is a cold calculation to steal Jewish property. It is not even hatred, but applied hatred to assist stealing. Yes, we are sensitive about our identity as all immigrant groups are. But the animosity when State-applied from the top, is not even about Jewishness. Just the way the world is.
Maybe a part of it, but I can't help seeing it as a mental health disorder. Why does it seem like those religions with the most animosity toward the Jews are those that arose out of Judaism? And then there's this thing about being "chosen". It's never been clarified, at least for me, what exactly we were chosen for. I have speculated that if in fact the human race was created by extraterrestrials who then taught us how to be human, since just about every indigenous group seems to have a history where they're being taught by "sky people", maybe Yahweh was just the name of the extraterrestrial who "chose"us to mentor. And unfortunately, the Jews were the only ones to write a book about it. Except of course for the Sumerian tablets, but they haven't had the best-seller status of the Bible. Besides there's no Sumerian people to hate.
We Jews were/are chosen by the Creator to be a light unto the nations. To bring Godliness into the world. When you learn Torah, and live according to Torah, it is easier to understand why and how, and easier to do. The shame is that phrase "chosen people" is not understood by so many Jews. Our job is to show by example how to sanctify life, create and maintain a civil and moral society. That's quite the responsibility. Almost "Mission Impossible". But it gives us purpose and goals. Now you know.
Brilliant and accurate …. Unfortunately.
I didn't feel unsafe in Seattle. I just never felt accepted. I grew up in NYC and blamed myself for the difficulty I had in finding appropriate employment. I finally realized it probably wasn't me when the Californians started moving there, I think it was the 90's. The vitriol and hatred the Seattleites showed to these newcomers who looked exactly like them, made me realize why I had so much difficulty there. And the coup de grace was a restaurant owner I was friendly with mentioned to me that when he got job applications from people who had grown up in NYC, he just discarded them. I just envisioned all the resumes I had sent out for jobs I was more than qualified for, but never got even a "thank you for applying" from any of them. I live in Boston now and it was easier for me to find meaningful work here at 60 than I ever had in all the years I lived in Seattle. It's not as bad if you're a professional with a business of your own, but I wasn't. It's a beautiful city determined to uglify itself with "progress". I visited there last April and it was unrecognizable, even more pretentious than I remembered. Decent - and affordable - restaurants seemed to be in very short supply. I recall paying $15.00 for a breakfast that consisted of a half sandwich and a cup of coffee. And did I mention how the same newspaper wrote an enraged rant concerning the NY bankers who sought to close in on a balloon payment owed for the Seattle Public Market which included a comment on the "big-nosed" bankers? You could probably research and find both articles. I'm happy in Boston. I live in a beautiful building that dates from the 19th century and have a view that consists of other buildings/residences beautifully constructed in the 19th century. Much better than the creatively challenged boxes that seem to comprise current ideas of architecture and seem to have replaced anything like history in Seattle. Seattle just was not for me. I hope your experience of it is better than mine was. Boston seems - so far - to have been spared the antisemitic virus. Walking down the street one day wearing a tee shirt that said "Curb your antisemitism" I received several positive comments, not one insult.
I’m not Jewish. I did well in school and was exposed to popular culture like many American kids. In college, I befriended some Jewish students and started attending Hillel events.
I felt like a foreign exchange student. So much was new. There was so much to learn.
It does baffle me why so many of us know so little about Judaism and Jewish culture. It’s not as if I had never had Jewish neighbors before college. It makes it harder to understand why no TV sitcom has ever centered a plot around, say, shenanigans at a Purim celebration, for instance.
Thank you for this.
And yet there are many movies that have been made concerning specific groups of people that have done very well. Remember Boys Town? How many movies about Catholics? About the Puritans, about boxers, football players, about the Black American experience? I think if a movie or play is well-written, well-played, it will attract an audience. After all, many of the best Christmas songs were written by Jews. What I really find amusing is the fact that "Jewish Christmas", going to a movie and a Chinese restaurant on the day was probably popular with Jews as Chiinese restaurants were traditionally the only restaurants open on Christmas. Now, even though Jews are a tiny segment of the population, it's become very difficult to get into a Chinese restaurant on Christmas as they are now packed with people. Not that I don't also relate to your perspective. I lived in Seattle, and I look Jewish. It was very difficult for me there and, at the time I blamed myself. I recall a newspaper article concerning an entire family that was murdered, beaten to death with an iron, parents and two young sons on Christmas Eve, because this particular psychotic assumed them to be Jewish by their name, despite the Christmas tree in their living room. I can't forget the comment in the article in the Seattle Times, the most popular paper at the time, "And the tragedy is they weren't even Jewish".
OMG I am so sorry! I live in Seattle, and it absolutely is rough here. I hadn’t heard of that event or Seattle Times story before, but that is horrific. Hope you are now living somewhere now where you feel safer.
yes, and now the "Occupation" makes Jews like Germans.....
Only if you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
see Gideon Levy in Haaretz........."denying the genocide in Gaza is the same as the Holocaust deniers"......
Yeah Haaretz left reality behind a long time ago, to pander to the American left. Find another news source.
no denials of genocide as seen by Amnesty Int'l, Peace Now, Human Rights Watch, Jewish Voices for Peace and more?; the above are all Jewish in origin.
Haaretz...."Land of Israel"
None of the above are Jewish in origin, including and especially JVP. Amnesty has a record of antisemitism as does Human Rights Watch.
The fact that you are bringing this up on an article about Jews in America is 100% the work of those and other organizations to invert the horror committed against Jews.
So good work buying what Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood have been selling for 78 years.
you getting frozen out must have been too much! JVP not Jewish? Amnesty started by a British Jew in the late 50's, not Jewish? I'm not buying anything from Muslims, and look at what the "Occupation" has gotten Israel, the Jewish nation, in the last 77 years.
Jewish Voice for Peace is anything but. It's pro-Hamas and the other organizations regular promote antisemitic talking points. See ADL for a thorough explanation.
So your comment has no basis in reality...free speech..
and, the rest?
I looked up the quote, which was "denying the starvation in Gaza is the same as the Holocaust deniers"...... which is a grotesque comparison considering that Israel allowed food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza during an active war not to mention they that there was never any mass starvation, only the usual privations of war. I don't recall the Nazis allowing Jews foreign aid during the Holocaust, so the analogy is meant to shock and smear but falls apart upon analysis.
Also, you have to take into account the person and their history along with their claims: Gideon Levy has long been an enemy of the Israeli govt, he even hates the Labor Party. Its Secretary General, Yehiel Bar, wrote: "Sad, that Levy who used to be a moral compass, became a broken compass: at all time, with no connection to circumstances or reality, Levy's compass points negative, points despair, points irrelevant". Bar added that Levy regards Palestinians as uneducated children who are exempt from any responsibility for their actions.
Gideon Levy's entire purpose now is to provide talking points to Hamas and various other Jew haters and their supporters.
"Israel allowed food," that was promptly stolen by Hamas. The Likud would not allow American marines to make the delivery as that was a secured method. For hasbara, it was necessary.
Genocide, see Amnesty Int'l and 5 others....
It is ridiculous to blame Israel because Hamas stole the food aid meant for their own people! They are absolved of all agency and responsibility!!?
And the notion that US Marines would have done this and it was "a secured method" is an insane fiction. The Gaza floating pier collapsed in a few months:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_floating_pier#Damage_and_repair
And the same people shrieking about American involvement in the war would have shrieked even louder if American Marines landed and were injured or killed. This is just simplistic hindsight clarity.
But there really are no depths Jew haters won't sink to in order to blame Israel for all the world's evils, even when they're on the receiving end of a massacre.
And regarding the claims of a "genocide, this is from Benny Morris, a well-respected left-wing Israeli historian:
—The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines genocide as the “annihilation of a race”; the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary defines it as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.” Both definitions accurately describe the actions of the Germans and their helpers in Europe during World War II, when some six million Jews were murdered, and of the Muslim Turks in 1894–1924, when some two million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians were butchered.
Nothing like this happened in Gaza in 2023–25. There was widespread destruction of infrastructure and habitation, and around 70,000 Palestinians were killed (the figure includes 15,000-20,000 Hamas combatants). But there was no genocide, no systematic destruction of the population. Indeed, the Gaza Strip’s population seems to have slightly increased over the two-three years in question, when births outstripped deaths. Genocides, of course, result in major reductions of population—after the Holocaust, there were six million fewer Jews; after the Turkish genocide, there were two million fewer Christians.
The non-genocidal nature of IDF actions in Gaza emerges clearly from the Israel Air Force (IAF)’s operations. The bombardments in the Strip were directed at what the IAF and Israeli intelligence believed to be—and generally were—Hamas arms depots, military positions, bases, and hideouts. Each strike was approved by intelligence and legal officers. No doubt mistakes occurred and without doubt many strikes—perhaps most—resulted in the deaths of civilians alongside the targeted Hamasniks, who were embedded among the civilians. But there was no deliberate targeting of civilians. One can accuse the Air Force pilots of having been partly impelled by vengefulness and having been not overly sensitive to causing collateral casualties. But this is not tantamount to the deliberate killing of civilians.
Comparing what happened in Gaza with the actual genocides of the twentieth century reveals stark differences. During the real genocides, inhabitants were not warned of impending assaults; in Gaza, this was the norm. In the Holocaust and in the Turkish genocide, the intended victims were simply rounded up, driven to designated sites, and murdered.
During much of the war, Israel supplied the Gazan population—the majority of whom supported Hamas, sometimes proactively, both before and during the war—with electricity and water and allowed foodstuffs and other provisions to enter the Strip. True, Israel often restricted the entry of foodstuffs in the hope of turning the population against Hamas or of depriving Hamas of the goods that they routinely confiscated and sold to the civilian population, and that this led to malnutrition and even limited pockets of hunger and starvation. And it is true that the IDF’s eventual effort to feed the population itself through the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or to regulate international air drops was largely a failure. Nonetheless, at no stage in the war did the government adopt or implement a policy designed to starve the Gazan population into submission, though a number of former Israeli generals did recommend such a policy.
In sum, during the war in Gaza a large number of Palestinian civilians were killed but there was no genocide, though Hamas and its supporters in the Arab world and in the West ran a very effective propaganda campaign that portrayed Israelis as genocidaires.
look how the culture was destroyed in Gaza...schools ,museums...hospitals totally destroyed and where the poor Pals are living in tents.......that's a clear sign of genocide...just see what the human rights group say and stop being ignorant..
Why do we let this schmuck steer the conversation towards “Israel commits genocide” when the entire post was about Jews living in America?
Fuck him and his liberal, libel bullshit. His “Free, Free Palestine” rant is just bullshit.
Fuck off, Liberal Don.
your very sick, just look at your langauge;....see a Liberal Jewish psychiatrist, and soon!
I saw Gideon Levy in a debate. He looks and sounds totally like a Jewish brother, because he is. He’s just more ignorant than he believes about so many things, especially about Torah. His moral eye is diseased, partially blind. Truly a shame.
Get lost dumbass.
"Know the Jewish calendar is overflowing with holidays." In the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar every day mentions a Saint or a religious holiday event. When I go to Mass one of those listed are mentioned in the Service. Since both Judaism and Catholicism are ancient religions I'm not surprised at the number of remembrances in both.
I think there is a bare bones of truth to some of this but much of it is twisted, exaggerated or entirely wrong. It is true that Otto Frank edited some of Anne's diary. But it was mostly personal stuff related to her budding sexuality and her relationship with her mother. There is no evidence he removed references to their Jewishness. They were obviously Jewish and everyone who read the diary or saw the play understood exactly why they were hiding. This is a miss. Earlier there is no question that Hollywood sought to downplay Jewishness. But it sought to downplay all ethnicity. The Simchas Torah joke in Top Secret (Which is one of the only things I actually remembered from that film) is funny because the contradiction of having a very goishe Val Kilmer say it is funny. It is why having June Cleaver talk jive is also very funny in Airplane (Same creators)
Please see Cynthia Ozick’s essay in the New Yorker for details on the Jewish references removed from the diary.
No other ethnicity had to downplay their ethnicity for the last 150 years. There was some brief anti-Catholic bias that effectively ended after JFK was elected. There are plenty of movies featuring Italians and Irish. Today, they’ve become another flavor of white person. The same isn’t true for Jews.
Well, we had a nice respite in America and Canada from about 1955 to 2023.
Interesting and I agree with the premise although many of the little factoids are wrong. Lillian Hellman (a Jew) glommed onto Otto Frank and convinced him that the diary had to be universalized because that was her point of view. Meir Levin who did not agree wrote a whole book about it. Yes, America has been good to the Jews as long as we weren't too Jewish.