Wednesday, July 3, 2013

On Jews and Justice

Hantu Laut

Taking respite  from the unpleasant world of politics. 

Below is a short,  somewhat facetious composition from Kirk Douglas on racism, or rather anti-Semitism he experienced when he was a kid. 

I guess not many people know he is a Jew and his real name is Issur Danielovitch, later changed to Izzy Demsky and later legally changed to Kirk Douglas.

He is now 97 years old and have stopped making movies.

On Jews And Justice

Kirk Douglas


I was six-years-old when I had my first contact with anti-Semitism. I came home from school one day with a bloody nose, crying to my mother -- "Yanak hit me!"
"Why?" my mother asked.
"He said I killed Jesus Christ."
"What? You killed who?"
"I didn't kill him. I don't even know who he is."
My nose stopped bleeding and soon I was playing again with Yanack as if nothing had happened between us. It wasn't his fault, because that was what he had been taught to believe by his father. And come to think of it, it wasn't Yanack's father's fault either because he'd certainly been taught the same thing by his father. Maybe none of them could read, because if they had actually studied their New Testament, they would have learned the truth: that the Romans were the ones who crucified Jesus. Only the Romans had the right of public execution. The Jews were a tiny people subject to the laws of the Roman empire.
Rodgers and Hammerstein dealt with the subject of learned prejudice when they wrote the highly successful musical comedy South PacificSouth Pacific was a hit on Broadway but when they started the tour in the Southern states they ran into trouble. The state of Georgia introduced a bill outlawing South Pacific because it contained "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow." The claim was based on one song, "You've Got to be Carefully Taught." Here are the lyrics:
"You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" (Lyrics from South Pacific)
You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate.





The Southern legislators maintained that this "song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life." Rodgers and Hammerstein fought stubbornly against them and the song stayed in.

2 comments:

IT.Sheiss said...

Racism is not good but if Israel did not oppress the Palestinians, there would most probably be less dislike against them here.

On this issues of the Jews killing Jesus, whilst it's true that the Romans crucified him, it was especially the Jewish priesthood - i.e. the Pharisees who demanded and pressurised Roman Consul Pontius Pilate to have Jesus executed, so they share the blame.

Jesus had issues with the way the Pharisees were going about the Jewish faith, by requiring strict observance of laws, which Jesus felt missed the importance of the spiritual aspects of people's relationship with God.

Thus, the Pharisees saw him as a trouble maker, denounced him as a heretic and had him executed, just as the Roman catholic Church was to execute many alleged heretics by burning them at the stake and this was in "civilised" Europe, not the Middle east.

It's also believed, esspecially today, that Jesus either belonged to or was influenced by a partarcularly ascetic faction of Judaism called the Essenes who were antagonistic to the Pharisees (commoner priesthood) and the Sadducees (aristocratic priesthood), so there was plenty of intra-religious politics at work here, just as Protestants like Martin Luther, a devout Catholic priest, turned against the Roman Catholic Church.

Then again, if Jesus was destined to be executed horribly as an atonement for all mankind's sins, as Christians believe, then weren't the Jews, Judas and the Romans all playing their respective roles to facilitate God's will?

Anonymous said...

Read more..Gram ...There were reasons why were Jews were hated and despised? There were more than 100 pogroms against the Jews done by different race and different time. In UK..the jews were barred from entering for more than 800 years.In Europe until the 18th century the Christisns celebrated Easter by bashing the Jews.

Bolshevik Revolution, French Revolution, World War 1&2, Communism, Financial Crisis in 1998, junk bond, Properties Crisis in USA..you name it..behing these were their handiworks.

If the Jews were to live like the Parsis, rich but philanthropic. .no one will be angry with them.