The Great Gilad Atzmon Paperchase

Respectfully submitted by the Makabit, notes on the events befalling the Bay Area Zionists on the evening of February 25, Oakland, California:

Gilad Atzmon can be described in a variety of ways. You could describe him, as his adoring fans do, as a 'prolific performer, composer, author and activist'. You could describe him as nearly everyone else does, as a unhinged hater whose writings drip with classical anti-Semitism and a poisonous hatred of Jews and Judaism. Or, you could describe him, as a lady of my acquaintance does, simply as 'someone who makes a living being a self-hating saxophonist'.

A brief primer on Gilad Atzmon for those of you who may have blissfully erased him from your memory banks since the last time he popped up. Atzmon is on record as saying:

“I’m not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue. I can see that it is a rational act.”

“American Jews do try and control the world by proxy” 

“There is no such thing as anti-Semitism”
 

“Why is it that the Jews who repeatedly demand  that the Christian world should apologize for its involvement in previous persecutions, have never thought that it is about time that they apologized for killing Jesus?"

“I wanted to be an ordinary human being, which is very unusual for a Jew.”

He is most recently the author of a book entitled The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics, described by Walter Russell Mead as "a genuinely anti-Semitic book by a deeply twisted anti-Semite — who happens also to be Jewish." The book, among other things, speculates about the truth of the blood libel, and points out in Hitler's defense that American Jews were persecuting him by boycotting German goods. Atzmon also adds, of the Shoah: I think that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start to ask the necessary questions. We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a religious narrative that is sustained by political pressure and laws. 


I won't even get into what he says about Israel, a nation that had the misfortune to count Gilad Atzmon as a citizen until he renounced his connections to Israel, Judaism, and sanity. (He now lives in Britain, which deserves better.) So you get the idea: proudly self-loathing, comfortable with the tropes of Holocaust denial, and reviving the ugliest smears of classical anti-Semitism. 


This charming fellow is much beloved by people who hate Israel, and are pleased by the vicious image that Atzmon creates of Jews and Israelis. Which is why he is repeatedly invited to star at various 'fundraisers' for various anti-Israel activities. Most recently, this led to his being invited to Oakland, CA, on the evening of Saturday, February 25, for an evening of music and anti-Semitism, to raise funds for the Global March to Jerusalem. For reasons that will follow shortly, I do not believe that they can have possibly raised enough money to cover the cost of flying Mr. Atzmon out from England. In fact, one of the most consistent things about Atzmon's fundraising endeavors is that they never seem to raise much in the way of funds. But that is a consideration for another day.

Of course, if we was gonna be there, we were gonna be there. The Zionists and proud Jews of the Bay Area revved up. We took old signs out of storage, and painted new ones. There was no way Atzmon was going to speak anywhere in the Bay Area without us standing by and telling the world the truth about his vile shtick. We were a little nervous, after the peaceful organizers of this event contacted anarchists at Occupy Oakland for 'security', soliciting the response "Who do you want us to beat up?" But we went anyway. We were determined to speak truth to...whatever it is Gilad Atzmon is.

Things got complicated after that, though, because rather than face being called out for being a purveyor of hate speech, racism, and vile lies, Gilad Atzmon went on the run.

We arrived at the designated location, only to find that the only people stirring around the building were young and fashionable--not exactly the typical Atzmon fans. Several of the girls were wearing wigs teased into big Afros. It was, as we later learned, the Seventh Annual Say it Loud 70's Fashion Show.

We admired the young people's retro ensembles. But where was Atzmon? We found this notice taped to the inside of a nearby door.

As you'll note, they didn't leave an address or phone number, which is customary when a piece of theater has a change of venue, but then again, the point of the change of venue may simply have been to shake off pursuit. While a forlorn pair of Atzmon fans called several numbers, trying to find out where the event had gotten to, the Zionists surveyed the scene, and shrugged. The field was ours, and we were on the point of declaring victory and going out to dinner. We even took a few photographs.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we then found out where Atzmon was hiding. (It was cold and bleak and dark, and I was actually looking forward to dinner.) However, one of the organizers showed up to discreetly hand out flyers with the new address, and armed with one of these, we leaped back in our assorted conveyances and headed out to find Atzmon's new hide-out.

The new location was on a residential street, and as we rolled down it looking for street numbers, we came to the conclusion that the new location was probably someone's living room. But we were wrong. Oh, how wrong we were.

Atzmon's new venue turned out to be the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, and I confess that when I saw the sign, I actually shrieked a little, and our driver was so discombobulated that she accidentally parked in the cultural center's parking lot. This later turned out to be something of a problem, but we were, to put it mildly, startled.

I do not know how Gilad Atzmon managed to find shelter from the storm at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, seeing as he is neither a Muslim, nor particularly cultured, aside from his saxophone playing, which is apparently pretty decent. I can only assume that he was seriously mischaracterized to the poor soul in charge of scheduling, who therefore made the disturbing mistake of letting a man who thinks burning a synagogue is a 'rational act' into a building which serves as a mosque.

We all spilled out of our cars, and lined up along the fence in front of the ICC parking lot. We had signs, and a banner, and a flag, and we all made ourselves fairly comfortable. (It was cold, it was dark, and we were protesting a nasty bigot in front of a local Cultural Center, but other than that, we were comfortable.)

After that, things went fairly smoothly. An event organizer hovered outside, glaring at us, and denouncing our flyer as a pack of lies. A few young men, wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night, were produced from somewhere, and stood around, nominally protecting the entrance to the ICC. I believe they were intended to look menacing, but they seemed more intrigued by us than anything else.

Meanwhile, no actual ticket-holders seemed to be showing up. We gathered, from hurried conversations between the organizers, that things were being delayed, while everyone was apprised of the new location. That was OK. We waited. Meanwhile, people kept exiting the ICC, many of them with young children, apparently leaving some other event inside. I felt rather awkward as they walked past me. It seemed like mere politeness to scream a warning. "Your cultural center has Gilad Atzmon in it!" I mean, I would want to know. But I wasn't sure of the etiquette for this situation. I settled for smiling politely.

The organizer-in-chief threatened to call the police, so we tried to be helpful and called them ourselves. They showed up several minutes later, and chatted with our representative and that of the Atzmon fans, familiarizing themselves with the situation.

They also turned out to be useful because, as I may have mentioned, we had parked in the ICC's parking lot, and getting out was now starting to seem somewhat perilous. I'm trying to make this whole outing as lighthearted as possible, but the truth of the matter is that any fan of Gilad Atzmon's is pretty much automatically a pretty special kind of hater, and these people scare the heck out of me. Luckily, one of the police officers, apprised of the situation, agreed to escort our car and driver out of the parking lot.

After that, we stood around and held our signs and got very cold, while the Atzmon people engaged in their favorite pastime, filming Zionists. One of them attached to one of our activists and kept him talking for the entire hour and a half we were there, filming the whole thing. A young woman smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and wearing an "I Heart Gaza" t-shirt filmed the rest of us.

Oh, yes, the actual event? Well, fewer than twenty-five people attended in the end. A trickling handful arrived and were ushered into the parking lot as we stood there. There may have been more activists outside than suckers inside.

We were freezing outside, and in the dubious company of Gilad Atzmon's fans. We were still doing better than those inside, who were listening to Gilad Atzmon. Transcript of the hideous speech that transpired inside coming up in the next post.

Beit Shemesh and Israel Advocacy: Some Thoughts

Like the rest of the Judeoblogosphere, I have been fixated for days on the situation in Beit Shemesh, where Israelis from all religious and political backgrounds are finally saying 'enough is enough' to the increasingly aggressive and violent Sikrikim gang, and other anti-Zionist, religiously fanatical groups in the Jerusalem area.

After months of increasing violence and petty harassment, largely against women, and other members of the haredi community, and struggle over gender segregation on the buses going through Mea Shearim and nearby areas, the Sikrikim upped their game by harassing little girls at the local Orthodox Orot Banot school in Beit Shemesh. The parents of one of these girls, Naama Margolese, age eight, who was spit on and called a prostitute, went to the media. And Israel responded.

Naama Margolese, with her mother, Hadassah

The last several days have been filled with demonstrations against the violence and intimidation of the extremist groups, along with voices speaking out against them from every corner of society.

Netanyahu declared: “Israel is a Western liberal democracy, and as such its public space is open and safe for all, men and women. There is no place in [Israel] for discrimination. The police will continue to arrest all those who spit, raise their hands, and harass.”

Chief Military Rabbi, Brigadier-General Rafi Peretz said: “The spirit of Jewish law does not allow discrimination or violation of women in any circumstance and on any grounds.”

Left and right, religious and secular, Israelis have found common ground, as have Jews across the Diaspora. The photographs coming out of Beit Shemesh have been inspiring:

The center sign quotes from 'Hatikva'--
Lihiot am chofshi. To be a free people.

Prominent Israelis spoke out. Netanyahu opened the Knesset, declaring: “Israel is a Western liberal democracy, and as such its public space is open and safe for all, men and women. There is no place in [Israel] for discrimination. The police will continue to arrest all those who spit, raise their hands, and harass.”

Chief Military Rabbi Brigadier-General Rafi Peretz said: “The spirit of Jewish law does not allow discrimination or violation of women in any circumstance and on any grounds.”

Yelling in the streets for justice.

This gentleman's sign makes me terribly happy.

I immediately became a member of Occupy Bet Shemesh on Facebook, friended the Orot Banot school, and began to send off letters and signing petitions, as is my custom when something in Israel or elsewhere has me riled up.

Other Diaspora bloggers were doing likewise. Vicious Babushka wrote an amazing blog post, from the perspective of a Chabad grandmother of 29, many of whom live in Israel, and appeared on a radio panel.

A young man in payos, and a young woman with her hair uncovered,
stand together, with gentle, thoughtful faces.

Seeing the unifying activist theory rising these past couple of weeks has been a remarkable and heartening experience. At the same time, I could see that people were nervous about the degree to which dirty laundry was being aired, in a world in which even the most positive story coming out of Israel can be quickly appropriated for Israel-bashing purposes. (See, 'pinkwashing'.) "How can Gentiles understand this?" one friend asked me. "I don't understand it myself." And sure enough, I saw people approaching the story understanding only that the 'ultra-Orthodox', a dimly envisioned group who are imagined to be universally fanatical, anti-Arab, anti-woman, and disproportionately politically powerful, were up to something. "How can Israel criticize religious fanaticism anywhere else in the Middle East," the line generally ran, "when they have this happening and home, and the government does nothing to stop it?"

That, of course, is the mistaken part. Actually, two mistaken parts--first, the idea that Israel goes around complaining about other people's religious fanatics, except when those fanatics are directly talking about wiping Israel off the map, (they don't), and secondly, that the government is doing nothing about it, or is somehow supporting these crazies by not doing what, say, many other governments in the Middle East would do if offended by an anti-government group like this, and arresting anyone connected to their movement, torturing them, and keeping them in lockup without charging them. My first instinct, regardless, was to compartmentalize--to speak out about Beit Shemesh, but not to connect it to my Israel advocacy, for fear of making 'a shanda for the haters'.

Ronn Torossian at Algemeiner explores the various ways in which the international media has gotten the wrong end of the stick on this story, in what I consider a very good article. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about a variety of conversations I've had with anti-Israel activists, in which I've told them, bluntly and repeatedly that in contradiction of their assumptions, I do not think that Israel is a perfect fairy-tale land, and that not only am I aware of problems within the society and the government, but I speak out against them, and am an activist against them as much as I am an activist against those who would destroy Israel from without. So I have determined to be as open about my joy at the demonstrations in Beit Shemesh as I am about any other positive event in Israel, as clear about my opposition to religious extremists terrorizing their neighbors, religious and otherwise, as I am about my opposition to the Israel-haters of the world.

The stickers on this boy's face read "Beit Shemesh is a Zionist city".
He is protesting against the religious extremists, who are anti-Zionist.

Denying the validity of a Jewish state.

One point I think we need to make, clearly and loudly, is that while people who are unfamiliar with Israel, and have been ably misinformed by Israel-haters, may think of Toldot Aharon and the Sikrikim as the 'ultra-orthodox' they associate loosely with the settler movement, these people are actually, among other things, rabid anti-Zionists, loosely connected to the Neturai Karta movement, and staunchly opposed to the idea of a secular, democratic, self-determining Jewish state. They are, in fact, the allies of the anti-Israel activists of the West, and closely resemble them in their histrionic sense of theater, willingness to traumatize innocent children, and general ugly behavior.

Secondly, while it may be reasonable to think that something could have been done to rope in the extreme behavior of this fringe group, as I said above, had they tried something similar to this in Egypt under Mubarak they might simply all have vanished off the street one day, and in other places in the world, their spiritual brethren are running the whole show. Israel, a democracy with rule of law, faces a more complicated challenge, similar, perhaps to the one that the American legal system has faced in dealing with groups such as the FLDS. There is a fine line between allowing people to worship and live as they like, and hold their own political beliefs, and preventing them from harming people both in and out of their group, and Israel, like every other democracy worldwide, has to walk this line.

Looking at events unfolding in Beit Shemesh I am proud of us. I am proud of the Israelis and the Diaspora bloggers, I am proud of the people Hadassah Margolese referred to repeatedly in her speech to one of the demonstrations as 'the chareidi, the chiloni and the dati leumi' members of the Beit Shemesh community. I am proud of the Zionists. This is not dirty laundry, this is washing day, and for me it is another reminder of what I love about Israel and the Jewish people worldwide.

Israel in the Gardens 2011--Release Your Inner Camel

The inflatable camel was with Hillel, and I took a picture of it because it said 'Release your inner camel' on the side of it, and I had never considered having an 'inner camel' before. Also, the camel is a Bactrian. Middle Eastern camels are dromedaries. I discussed this with the Hillel guy, who explained that this was the only inflatable camel on the market. We agreed that it was a Bactrian that had made aliyah.

Welcome to Israel in the Gardens, 2011, a cultural fair featuring Israeli rock, face painting, kids making spice blends, folks selling earrings, and approximately a bazillion people in line for The Flying Felafel. Targeted for hate and protest by Bay Area Women In Black and their peace-loving friends. Let the good times roll!

We, the Mighty Morphin' Zionist Defenders were ready to go. We had t-shirts. We had flags. We had Caterpillar hats. We had khaffiyot yisraelit. We were ready to go. All we lacked was a dance partner.

Here is a lady being wanded, prior to entering the event. I've been to a lot of cultural fairs in my day. Let's just say that at the Scottish Games in Santa Rosa they don't wand you and search your bag when you come in. Same way they don't have security guards outside First Methodist on Christmas Day, but they do for Rosh Hashanah services. But I am grateful for our excellent security teams, because while needing them sucks, needing and not having would suck much more.

Anyway, our dance partners began to arrive...

 BAWIB is always punctual, dreary, and carrying signs that are correctly spelled, although not always fact-checked.

They had great shopping malls in the Warsaw Ghetto, I remember reading about that. Or perhaps what we have here is sheer denial of reality, combined with the pathetic belief that invoking the Holocaust will make the actual situation on the ground irrelevant.

Meanwhile, things were going nicely on the other side of the barricades:

Happy Zionists with a banner

 

Our waltz with BAWIB was coming to a close. As I've mentioned, BAWIB is quite punctual. If they say noon to one, they show up at noon and leave on the stroke of one. We were not going to be left without dance partners, however. The replacement shift was already getting ready across the plaza, and they were working on...something.

What it was wasn't entirely clear. At this stage it consisted mostly of red and black balloons. They began to add green ones, but were having trouble controlling them. An occasional balloon drifted up to the sky.

As BAWIB marched off into the distance, the first members of the replacement shift arrived. Younger. More excitable. Bearing flags and signs printed by International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Perhaps it's just as well they had the signs printed by A.N.S.W.E.R., since it turns out that they can't spell very well. One would almost think these people were members of the Tea Party.

 

I couldn't get a clear shot of this man's sign, but it reads "Israel: 63 Yrs. of Ethnic Cleansing & APATHEID". The all-caps was important, but apparently the evil West Bank settlers stole the R.

"Paletinian Ethnic Cleansing". What, is spellcheck a Zionist conspiracy? Don't they PROOFREAD these things? (BAWIB may be hateful, but their signs are always spelled correctly.)

Sadly, the third example of spelling issues that I wanted to post did not come out legibly in the photos. The young man below and one of his friends were both wearing jackets with photographs printed on the back, and a heading accusing "Isreal" of horrible crimes.

By this time there were quite a lot of people in their little area in the street, yelling and screaming. What were they yelling a screaming? I'm glad you asked. They were yelling and screaming "Intifada, intifada, we support the intifada." They were shouting "Falastin Arabiye!" (Palestine is Arab). They were shrieking "From the river to the sea! From the river to the sea!" And they were screeching "Ba ruh, ba dam, nafdeek ya Falastin." (With spirit and blood we will cleans you, Palestine.) And the old crowd favorite "Khaybar, khaybar ya yahud, jaysh Muhammad saya'ud." (Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return.) You know. Peaceful slogans like that.

And then the piece de resistance showed up. You will recall the mysterious balloon item mentioned earlier? Well, this is what it looked like fully assembled.

In case you can't tell, I am pretty sure it was supposed to be a Palestinian flag. It didn't turn out perfectly, but heck, who am I to judge? My side didn't have any balloons at all. We were struck into silence by the sheer threatening force of all those balloons. For a couple of seconds. Then the Israeli guys behind me started screaming, "Balloons! Balloons! Ooooh, can I have a balloon? I want a balloon!"

More yelling. Several people gave us the finger. And then, as the SFPD became politely insistent, the group took their balloons and their signs and their whistle and bullhorns and moved across the street, ultimately leaving behind two young men who wanted to act out. They acted out. They chanted. One of them pulled up his sleeves to show us that he had the words "100% Palestinian" tattooed on his forearms.

It was as this point that the most wonderful thing I had seen all day, inflatable camels included, happened. A young woman detatched from the crew across the street, came back, and grabbed one of the young men (the one shown above), and pushed him in the right direction. The other guy wasn't moving, so she wrapped her ams under his, and hoisted him off his feet.

The cheering from our side (also the hooting) was deafening, and for a moment I thought the young woman was going to put him down and come back to the barricades to yell at us, but she gritted her teeth and carted him off, over the center divider, and across the street.

My inner camel felt good about the whole thing.