Gustave > "The Hasidim are less concerned with the symbols of Holocaust remembrance, they have a more historically-grown pragmatic and subservient attitude to the surrounding culture and politics. They will do what is good for the Jews and that is to be submissive and show gratitude and respect to the rulers, even if anti-Semitic." In such a way, they once said prayers for Hitler during the Nazi occupation. "By the time the Vlaams Blok throws out all the Arabs then we'll change party, we'll see," is their current attitude, he suggests.
What a dilemma these people find themselves in. Having to side with the descendants of the very ones (intellectually, anyway) who were responsible for exterminating their forefathers. Just because the bond between them is their common hate of the Muslim. How they must secretly hate themselves for their expediency.
In fact, the situation exposes an enormous contradiction. As I understand it, it was always the Jewish people who were the greatest proponents of democracy and liberalism. Then we find, first, the black Americans and, now, the Muslims taking advantage of democracy and liberalism to advance themselves in Western societies. Suddenly the Jews find themselves "hoist on their own petard" -- the very political arrangement they helped to create to suite their own interests suddenly the means to their own disadvantage.
So now we have Jewish religious fundamentalists and non-Jewish, and indeed anti-Jewish, rightwingers as common bedfellows. Each with a different agenda although a common hatred. What irony! The jackal tries to make friends with the wolf to keep the fox at bay!
Methinks the jackal is in trouble wherever he tries to hide, despite all the mischief he may make in order to get the wolf to fight the fox, because both see what he is trying to do and the mischief he is trying to make. |
