Kushner’s reply to CUNY
I just updated our brief with Tony Kushner's reply, via Salon, to City University of New York's decision to table an honorary degree for the playwright because of his views on Israel.
It's a good reply. Here it is at Scribd.
His distancing himself from BDS is especially interesting.
It's also beside the point. If Kushner is right, and the board of CUNY's John Jay College did not invite Kushner or an associate to defend him, that is a calumny and it is all the calumny we need to know.
This is the recording of the hearing. The section dealing with Kushner is 10 minutes before the end.
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, his accuser, justified his research by saying it was culled in part from the writings of Norman Finkelstein, who is anti-Israel, and that therefore lends it some kind of credibility...
Oy. Facts are facts, they either are or they are not. This kind of discourse has no place beyond the elementary school yard. ("Jenny says Margie is stinky, and Jenny is stinky, so she must know.") Do we look to David Irving to affirm who is and is not an anti-Semite?
Kushner's views are beyond the pale of the Jewish mainstream, it's true. This passage in his letter demanding an apology especially strikes me as tendentious, and not simply in a pro-Israel context:
My questions and reservations regarding the founding of the state of Israel are connected to my conviction, drawn from my reading of American history, that democratic government must be free of ethnic or religious affiliation, and that the solution to the problems of oppressed minorities are to be found in pluralist democracy and in legal instruments like the 14th Amendment; these solutions are,like all solutions, imperfect, but they seem to me more rational, and have had a far better record of success in terms of minorities being protected from majoritarian tyranny, than have national or tribal solutions.
That formulation makes just about every country except for the United States a tyranny. Maybe Canada, perhaps Australia and New Zealand can squeak in. (All three were founded on predicates of the expansion of British culture, but have since evolved.)
Otherwise, what government is free of ethnic affiliation? Is Ireland a tyranny? Japan? China? Ukraine, Argentina? Poland? Italy?
And affiliations are not just born, they are invited. Who's to say calling oneself an American is not an expression of tribe? Or calling oneself an internationalist? Or a fan of the 14th Amendment?
But that paragraph is merely dumb. It -- like the letter -- is not vicious.
"Vicious," however, may describe the public humiliation CUNY's board delivered to Tony Kushner.
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As an American/Israeli living in Tel Aviv I find it amusing that there is still a debate to justify Israel’s existence as a democratic Jewish State with full protection of minorities(non-Jews) as citizens by law.
Ron, as a graduate of CCNY I applaud the right of the board not to invite Kushner. His anti-Zionism-anti-Israel attacks are well known and bring little to the debate. Gifted talent or not,he has fueled the anti-Semites of this world with foolish and tired old rhetoric about Israel and Jews in general.
Even some of Jeremiah’s comments above only validate the point that there is a discomfort with Jews having their own State once again.
In a “perfect” world of the “internationalist” there might not be borders or communal identification. Though I suggest in and of itself there is nothing wrong sharing and identifying with a group. In fact, the sense of security and feeling “safe at home” can drive people to expand their concern for the “other”.
Israel is an easy target for criticism since we have much to improve and get right. But to use Israel as the punching bag for political and ideological debates at our expense is immoral with questionable motive and intent.
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Jeremiah Haber
05/04/11 10:52 PM
Ron, you misunderstand Kushner’s point—and you also lapse unthinkingly into Hasbara spin about Israel as a ethnic democracy. It is not.
Let me explain.
Israel is the only one of the countries you yourself mention—and many others—where the state is defined as the state of a particular religious ethnic group, no matter where the members of that group are born—and of no other group. You don’t become eligible for Polish or Irish citizenship through baptism; you do become eligible for Israeli citizenship through circumcision and signing on to a religion.
A 100 bucks contribution to JTA for any other country you can find where that is the case. Even Saudi Arabia, which requires you to be a Muslim in order to be a citizen, doesn’t guaranteed citizenship to Muslims.
The issue is not whether some countries have religious or ethnic traditions associated with it. The issue is also not whether some countries give preference in immigration to ethnic groups, as in Greece or some of the new former Soviet republics. Israel is not like Greece in its immigration policy, despite what the hasbaraniks say. And why not? In Greece, Greek nationals get preference in immigration. In Israel, Jews (defined by the criterion of the Nuremberg laws) are considered returning natives—whereas the natives of Palestine are considered as aliens with no rights to return to their homeland.
No other country in the world is like that, despite the facile analogies you read with Ireland or Poland.
And your second point is simply bizarre. If being a Jew were simply a matter of voluntary identification, like being a fan of the 14th amendment, that would be one thing. Then there could be Muslim Jews, and Palestinian Jews, and Christian Jews—all equal before the Israeli law. But Israel does not recognize voluntary affiliation or identification as sufficient.
Let me put it this way: would you make the same point if a country defined itself as representing the white nation? Could a black person who thinks himself white be represented.
Kushner’s views are radical for Jews who have been conditioned, by faulty analogies with ethnic states, to consider Israel normal. But you know that there are many thinkers in and outside of Israel that consider its version of ethnocracy to be very abnormal. Of course, one common response is—just as the Jewish people are unique, so is the Jewish state unique—and so what?
But if Kushner wants to explain his views as deriving from his understanding of American democracy (and remember—many Americans consider it to be a Christian state—would that Israel be a Jewish state in the same way), then what is wrong with that? Most liberal American Jews I know check their liberal values at the door when it comes to Israel. They are willing to dupe themselves into thinking that Israel is a Jewish America, or like Ireland or Greece.
Until they think harder.