COWS for J Street

How do you do, Michael Chabon, successful novelist and J Street Advisor.  Thank you for lending your name to the growing number of acerbic critics of The Jewish State.  Your presence on the roster of distinguished "Advisors" is proof of J Street's not-so-hidden agenda of dissolving Israel and making the world safe for diaspora Jews like you and your wife, Ayelet Waldman.

Like the abusive parent who continually wallops his child in order to improve her behavior, you have signed on to the noxious J Street tactic of being cruel to Israelis in order to be kind.  All you want to do is refine their morality.  It's an old trope, pioneered by that quintessential Jewish non-Jew, the WASP-walking, talking Anthony Lewis, who claimed to have been driven to save Israel's soul by demonizing her and exculpating her attackers.   In Vino Veritas, as the Romans said.  In your case, it's "In Fiction Veritas".    In your bestselling "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" you fantasize the premature demise of The Jewish State (1948), morphing it into a bizarre, comic territorialism plopped down into the Aleutian Islands by the munificence of the U.S. government.  Wish fulfillment indeed.

Echoing the sentiments of your soul-mate, Ayelet, in trashing Israel as the opponent of the glorious diaspora, you found the trick and you're exploiting it to the hilt:  Jewishness, for you, as for millions of other self-described, leftist Jews, consists of only 4 elements:

• Jokes
• Cuisine (usually accompanied by jokes)
• Holocaust narratives
• "Progressive" politics

 Skimming the surface of centuries of rich, Ashkenazi (of course, you don't even bother to consider centuries of rich Sephardic culture) yiddish culture, you slapstick your way through the cliched spiels of Shlemiel and Benya Krik, the Gangster.  As the eminent Professor of Jewish Culture at Harvard, Ruth Wisse, said of your work,

"Chabon’s mock-Yiddish reinforces the sentimental stereotype of the Jew as harmless refugee, one who does not threaten the peace of the world, or the peace of the Jews themselves, unless and until he fatally conspires to resettle the land of Israel."

In your world, the Jew can never be the object of pathos - he is merely and comically pathetic.  You and the lovely Ayelet really have your own knives out (pun intended) for all those "bad" Jews:  As you wrote about the cruel, bizarre Jewish rite of circumcision:

"Mutilation [is] the only honest name for this raw act that my wife and I have twice invited men with knives to come into our house and perform, in the presence of all our friends and family, with a nice buffet and Weekend Cake from Just Desserts..."

Jews of the Left have for years dredged up the "bris" weapon with which to beat their fellow Jews over the head.  NPR even did a couple of shows on the "barbaric" practice.  Michael, when will you pen a philippic against the Muslim practice of circumcision - performed at the ages of 8-13 (no wonder they're pissed off) that accounts for 99% of all male circumcisions, or female circumcision that results in horrendous mortality rates)?

You're so daring, irreverent and bold, Michael!  We can't get enough of those funny old Jew types, stumbling around the tundra freezing their kishkes off!  Why doesn't anyone of your obvious literary talent ever satirize Muslims?  Is it too risky?  Is there no good comic material there?  Would you fear for your life?  Obviously having been schooled in third-worldism, you have equated Muslims  with people of color and Jews are simply clumsy, shtick-laden white people (all except the Ethiopian Jews, of course.  And their only gripe is with the "white" Jews who are oppressing them).

How many Jewish jokes begin with the line, "Did you hear the one about the little, old Jewish man".  Why don't any jokes begin with:  "Did you hear the one about the little, old Muslim man"?  Because it's writers like you who achieve success by denigrating your brothers and sisters through proven and winning stereotypes.  Why can't all  Jews get their minds right and think like you and Ayelet?  If only Israel went away, we could all become COWS (Citizens of the World) and worship at the altar of other peoples' tribalism after having eliminated our own.

As for your and J Street's purported "Pro Israel" mission (that one's even funnier than your shtick), John Podhoretz has written,

"The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, was a work of anti-Zionism so thoroughgoing that it makes Mearshimer and Walt look like Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion by contrast."

The other sine qua non of membership in the exclusive J Street Club is, of course, OWS (Obama Worship Syndrome).  You are the perfect embodiment of that ideal.  As you have written:

"[T]his radiant, humane politician…seems not just with his words but with every step he takes, simply by the fact of his running at all, to promise so much for our country, for our future and for the eventual state of our national soul….To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world."

Let's recall Cassius' rendering of Caesar:

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.?"

We have no doubt that you will bridle at following Obama "blindly" - right!

And that's all she wrote: Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman - anti-Israel and pro-Obama.  Perfect teammates for J Street.