re: #25 Bob Levin

You might know that the Holocaust happened, but you don’t know why, or how public opinion was turned, or how, after Antisemitism was reduced to a weed in 1946, many world leaders are hopeful that a nuclear bomb lands on Israel—only 60 years later.

Telling other people what they don’t know is a pretty stupid way to attempt to communicate with them.

I said that Wilders is the tip of a very old and dangerous iceberg. One of the lessons of the Holocaust would be how to break that iceberg. We, Jews, haven’t gotten that far yet. And that’s why I say that Holocaust education hasn’t been successful. We haven’t asked the best questions, so we don’t have very good answers.

So is your real claim that Jimmah (and I assume others) don’t know how to best combat the iceberg, because nobody does? That’s really not how it came across.

I do think for a lot of people, a lot of Europeans, the reference to Israel will be interpreted solely under the rubric of antisemitism. They will see the connections to Israel and say “I knew it!”. These people will be on both the right and the left, since antisemitism floats everywhere.

I do not think that wanting to know more about Wilders connections in Israel is, by its nature, an invisible, subtle attempt to promote antisemitism. I think there is currently, sadly, a problem with politicians in Israel making nice with far-right lunatics in Europe, including those who are themselves antisemitic. This is a real thing, this is actually happening. Recognizing that it is happening is not antisemitism; I think the show could have put Wilders into a better context of the other right-wing associations that Israel has recently made, including the anti-semitic ones, but the basic point is true.

In America, you just jump in and begin climbing. Is that the case in Europe? Does Europe have an unofficial caste system? Does the system of European entitlements, rules on hiring and firing, subsidies, pensions reinforce a rigid social order?

You’re rather mixing two things here.

Europe has, in general, citizenship granted by ‘blood’, with applications for citizenship available for those who are born on the soil but not of the ‘blood’. This is a huge problem for Europe, and it’s absolutely true that this creates a caste system.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the system of entitlements and rules on hiring and firing reinforcing a rigid social order. There is more social dynamism in Europe than here in America. It is easier to change classes in most countries in Europe than it is in the United States. It is not if you are not a citizen, but it’s not that easy if you’re not a citizen in the US. And I’d ask you to remember we have a caste system here, too— we have millions of non-citizen workers who are in the lowest caste possible.

In addition, many groups in the US, like blacks, are still lower-caste in demonstrable ways related to hiring, firing, pay rate, etc. It is odd to me that you think otherwise, that the US has achieved some sort of actual parity on that ground.