British Film Gives ‘An Education’ in Anti-Semitism

Jenny: “Oh, and by the way ... David’s a Jew, a wandering Jew. So watch yourself.”

We were only 15 minutes into the film and this was the second reference to the “Wandering Jew,” an age-old, European anti-Semitic stereotype. The British coming-of-age film, “An Education,” had gotten rave reviews, yet the more I watched, the more the character of David Goldman resembled the parasitical Jew of “Der Ewige Juden” (“The Eternal Jew”) — one of the infamous 1930s Nazi propaganda films

Before any real progess can be made in America, first we need to stop the national guilt tripping. We can't seem to address real issues for dancing the "teaberry shuffle" around frivilous accusations of being "racists", "Anti-Semites", "anti-Gay", etc.

I was watching "SHANE" the other night, and there was the scene where Shane called the gunfighter a "dirty, low down yankee"...the gunfighter's reply was, "Prove it".

Well we all know what happened after that...but I got to thinking, we seem to jump so fast to defend ourselves against being called a name, we forget that the onus is on the name-caller, not the target.

If you're called a "racist", and you start defending it, you just said, "Yes, I am.". Maybe we should just say, "prove it!".

The word "racist" and other epithets are potentially harmful to ones life, family and career, depending on your position. Based on that, maybe we should reverse things a little and sue the bastards...pull them into court and make them prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are, in fact, a bonafide "racist".

A little facetious, yes, but the point is we react too much to the immature people who make name calling their weapon of choice...who accuse you of something that is nonsense. It's like in the old Salem days when everyone who didn't "conform" was called a "witch".

Any politician who's called a "racist", should call a press conference and address his accuser by saying, "prove it, or shutup". One of two things will happen, it will be proven, or it won't. Put the attacker on defense.

It's childish, it's school playground tactics, and it needs to stop and return to a world of adults solving problems so that future generations will even have a school playground. /rant.

Funny that. I never thought that the wandering Jew theme was particularly anti-semitic. Nor is it very well known anymore.

The Nazi film is very obscure.

Far more pertinent was Eugene Sues very popular 19th century anticlerical novel of that name, where the “Jew” in question (there are two of them in fact) are benevolent characters.

Interesting article.

Funny that. I never thought that the wandering Jew theme was particularly anti-semitic. Nor is it very well known anymore.

I didn't take many history courses in college -- back in the pre-PC early 80s -- and even I've heard of it. The "wandering jew" is a pretty well-known anti-semitic tradition, not exactly obscure if you've done any reading on WWII Germany and European anti-semitism, or are familiar with European 18-19th century literature. The old Soviet version of it was ""bezrodniy kosmopolit," or "rootless coasmopolitan." Same idea, same underlying nastiness.

The Nazi film is very obscure.

A lot less obscure to me than the British film the reviewer was criticizing. Never seen all of “Der Ewige Juden,” but if you've watched just one ducumentary on WWII that deals with Nazi anti-jewish propaganda you've probably seen clips from it (as I have).

Far more pertinent was Eugene Sues very popular 19th century anticlerical novel of that name, where the “Jew” in question (there are two of them in fact) are benevolent characters.

As for pertinence, I think it important to note that the reviewer isn't trying to lecture us on motifs in the 19th century novel.

He's using the term "wandering jew" as shorthand for a popular anti-semitic stereotype that portrays jews, as per the old Soviet term, as rootless cosmopolitans who have no loyalties to -- and are destructive to -- the community within which, and the individuals with whom, they live.

If the reviewer's excerpts from the film are accurate, then I'd say that it does appear that the film is playing around with fairly straightforward anti-semitic stereotypes. Whether the "playing around" is critical of the stereotypes, or is using them for evil ends, can only be determined by watching the film.

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