Next Year in Norwood

Jesse Walker | December 13, 2007

Miriam Leberstein reads the New York Times wedding section so you don't have to:

"Did you see it? Did you? Go home and look!" she sputtered. "It starts out totally normal and boring, with the Chinese-looking bride graduating from some American university with a technology degree, and the wedding to the American at some trendy resort with a Baptist minister. But look further and it turns out the bride's father was a head of the People’s Liberation Army of China. Mao must be turning in his grave!

"I looked at the announcement," Miriam continued, "and said, 'This is it. The child of a commander of the Chinese People's Liberation Army makes it into Weddings in the New York Times. What else is there to say about The New World Order?'"

That piece of the Zeitgeist comes from the latest post on Debbie Nathan's blog, which also includes this choice cut of forgotten history:

Mordkhe spent many years in the 1940s and 1950s as a "Territorialist." He and his group did not think it ethically correct or politically wise to create a Jewish state in Palestine. They explored other places, including Australia, Liberia, New Jersey, and the Norwood section of the Bronx.

Comments

Nigel Watt|12.13.07 @ 5:04PM|#

...What?

T|12.13.07 @ 5:12PM|#

He and his group did not think it ethically correct or politically wise to create a Jewish state in Palestine.

Ethics, schmethics, but the last 50 years have proven his thoughts on the political wisdom of it correct.

Bronxite|12.13.07 @ 5:20PM|#

Norwood? Why not Riverdale or Washington Heights?

|12.13.07 @ 5:21PM|#

Jersey? What exit?
I guess the mafia got there first.
If only conalas were a Jewish/italian food how different the world would be.
Another thing if the Jewish state was there, its unofficial motto would have been: A great place to get it wholesale but not to stay.

Billy Beck|12.13.07 @ 6:04PM|#

I've always thought the Jews should give up on the bloody madness of Israel and come to America.

I still do.

|12.13.07 @ 6:31PM|#

Toothpaste and tubes and all that, but...

The Middle East? Are you kidding me?

|12.13.07 @ 6:43PM|#

I've always thought the Jews should give up on the bloody madness of Israel and come to America.

Beck I agree but it is not going to occur when a significant number of Jews fear friendly Americans marrying their children more then being killed. They understand Jewishness as more then a religious identity.
They fear that in a hundred years being Jewish in America will lose its significance. That America will love them literally and figuratively to death. As an American chauvinist I don't understand why everyone doesn't just get over themselves and become Americans myself. But apparently some folks just aren't interested. In that case they should follow the Israelis' fine example and live someplace else.

Paul|12.13.07 @ 6:46PM|#

*sigh*

I guess I have to read the originating post to understand the deeper point here.

...

Ok, I read it. Does one have to be a Manhattanite to get it-- or more accurately-- care?

Mad Max|12.13.07 @ 6:47PM|#

If I forget thee, O New Jersey,
May my kneecaps be broken
May my body be cast into wet concrete
Which, when it hardens, becomes a parking lot
Or the end zone of a football field

|12.13.07 @ 6:49PM|#

Billy Beck

I also wish the Jews had decided to make their homeland somewhere else. (I'd love to see those 3 million industrious, educated, motivated people in my country.)

However:
1) Neither the USA nor Canada is not "the land GOD gave to ME".
2) Part of the reason for Zionism was that many Jews came to the conclusion that if they were a minority in ANY country, they would be subject to persecution. Given the history of anti-Semitism, this is not an unreasonable belief.

Jesse Walker|12.13.07 @ 7:04PM|#

the deeper point here

Nothing deep. Just an amusing Communism Really Is Over moment, plus an unrelated piece of history that seemed interesting to me.

Xmas|12.13.07 @ 7:25PM|#

The actual wedding announcement, for the curious:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/fashion/weddings/09sun.html?_r=1&ref=weddings&oref=slogin

Gene Berkman|12.13.07 @ 7:50PM|#

Murray Rothbard made a couple of mentions of "Territorialism" as an alternative to Zionism in some of his writings. Of course, in reality Zionism is a form of territorialism - the belief that Jews will only be safe if they live in a region or country in which they are not a minority.

Prior to the Holocaust, neither Zionism or Territorialism were widely supported, as most Jews just assimilated into the larger societies. And that remains the practice today, even as many will buy Israel bonds as a form of insurance.

Billy Beck|12.13.07 @ 8:37PM|#

"They fear that in a hundred years being Jewish in America will lose its significance. That America will love them literally and figuratively to death."

{blink} Oh. And the Arabs are going to love them to life.

That's really working out.

[long low whistle]

You know (you too, Aresen), even as I've wished what I have for a long time, I've never held out hope that reason would penetrate the matter.

"Neither the USA nor Canada is not 'the land GOD gave to ME'."

It was Swift, wasn't it? -- who wrote about the impossibility of reasoning someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into, to begin with?

|12.13.07 @ 9:52PM|#

I knew Communism was well and truly dead when Gorbachev's granddaughter was the leading debutante at some ball in a fancy Paris hotel. Said ball was sponsored by jewelry manufacturers. The article was in that banner-waving leftist rag Town and Country.

Old Communist battle cry: "We will bury you!"

New Communist battle cry: "We will marry you!"

Paul|12.13.07 @ 9:59PM|#

Just an amusing Communism Really Is Over moment

Thanks. Originally, I thought that's what the piece was trying to say (being a post on a libertatian-leaning blog), but then I backed off thinking there was a deeper, more subtle joke that I was missing.

|12.13.07 @ 10:05PM|#

I've always thought the Jews should give up on the bloody madness of Israel and come to America.

Yeah, maybe they'll do that someday. And while they're at it, they could also try to get a voice in US foreign policy and redress their underrepresentation in the entertainment industry.

Billy Beck|12.13.07 @ 11:07PM|#

If they did, then the foreign policy angle would be moot. As for the rest of it: what's the matter, 'washy'? A damned kike steal your gig?

src|12.14.07 @ 8:30AM|#

At one point there was a plan to have a Jewish state in Birobidzhan, in Siberia. Stalin encouraged (or "encouraged") Soviet Jews to move there to make them more productive by sending them to work the land.

Apparently, some of their descendants still live there. I don't know quite what to make of this.

Jesse Walker|12.14.07 @ 10:07AM|#

src: There's a good website about Stalin's Birobidzhan project here.

|12.14.07 @ 11:32AM|#

Old Communist battle cry: "We will bury you!"

New Communist battle cry: "We will marry you!"

Not really all that different, are they?

|12.14.07 @ 12:11PM|#

I've always thought the Jews should give up on the bloody madness of Israel and come to America.

Actually I've heard that most of the Soviet Jews didn't even want to go to Israel. They wanted to come to the US. And they do as soon as they can.

Israel is just a waystation. And it was preferable to the hell that the USSR was for them.