In what must be considered among the most egregious acts of discrimination against Israel by leftist intellectuals, author Alice Walker is not allowing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple to be translated into Hebrew because of her opposition to the Jewish state. The book, which was made into a popular 1985 movie directed by Steven Spielberg, is a story about racism and misogyny in the American south.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that in a letter posted on a site supporting the boycott of Israel, Walker said she was refusing to allow the translation in order to boost support for the movement to boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) the Jewish state because of its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians. But in saying she doesn’t even wish her work to appear in Hebrew, Walker is making a broader statement than a mere critique of Israeli policies. This sort of a boycott is an attempt to treat Jews and Hebrew, which is the national language of the Jewish people, as beyond the pale. In doing so, Walker has illustrated how hatred for Israel can erase the line between political opinion and outright anti-Semitism.
As JTA points out, Walker’s jihad against the language of Israel is mere symbolism. A Hebrew version of her book appears to already have been published in the 1980s. But however futile her efforts to prevent Hebrew readers from reading her prose, the decision to expand the boycott of Israel from products and investment in companies to actually seeking to isolate a language shows just how deep-seated the hatred of the country has become. In Walker’s world, Israelis are not just the bad guys in a fictional morality play in which the Palestinians are victims, but the very language they speak — the language of the Bible and the foundation of Western religion, values and morality — is to be treated as unworthy of being spoken or read.
Walker’s past diatribes against Israeli policy and her support for the Hamas terrorists in Gaza are ill-informed and rooted in ideological bias. Her belief that Israel’s measures of self-defense against Palestinian terror are not merely wrong but worse than American racism or South African apartheid is a calumny based on lies that can be refuted. But to discriminate against the language of the Jewish people in this manner is pure anti-Semitism.
It is possible to criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite. But Walker has crossed the line from an already indefensible economic war against the Jewish state to a cultural war against Jewish identity. Such boycotts will not convince Israelis to give up their country or their right to defend themselves against the ongoing efforts of Palestinians to destroy it. But they do serve as a warning that Walker and others who support her efforts have already crossed the line between the demonization of Israel and open expressions of Jew-hatred.
Rather than Israel being isolated, it is Walker who must now be treated by decent people everywhere as being as radioactive as anyone who supports racist incitement against African-Americans.
Years ago some ultra-leftie walked into the law school lounge and, overhearing my friend helping me with my very weak Hebew, announced in all seriousness "You're speaking the language of imperialism in the middle east." n nAbout an hour later I realized I should have replied "And you are speaking the language of neo-Nazis in North America."
I agree with your delayed assessment, but you were better for not having cast your pearls before swine. Thanks for sharing this experience, it punctuates the discussion succinctly.
I agree that responsible adults should have the right to NOT buy medical insurance. They have the right to make the responsible choice to pay for all medical costs out of their own pocket. This INCLUDES the right for the hospital to NOT offer any care unless it is paid for in total UP FRONT. After all, they are responsibloe adults and they don't want ANY MANDATES. Including theMANDATE that hospitals provide free medical care for those who are responsible enough to go without insurance. You can't afford the medical cost? Good for you!__Now step outside and stop bleeding to death here on the hospital floor. __
I'm trying to think of something offensive to say about Alice Walker but I can't because some things prove that satire might be dead.
Well, it's a shame. She's one of those scribes whose works are improved by translation.
I think in a just world, where the President of the United States is Black, affirmative action can cease, in all its many legislated and unspoken forms. n nThe fact that Alice Walker will likely get plaudits from the mainstream on this is a manifestation of the latter. n nThen, we shall see who can swim and who will sink.
Affirmation action got out of control many years ago, and has become an impediment and a problem for genuine advancement of blacks by promoting and enshrining lower expectations and reduced performance. n nNow that we have an affirmative action president, who was given the presidency without ANY qualifying credentials (OK, he is over 35 years of age), lower expectations and reduced performance are becoming the national standard. n nThis year we need to turn out Obama AND affirmation action. n
By UK law, he can peddle his concepts as a citizen in London.
Alice Walker is a complete fool at best, and the BDS movement disgusts me, but I don't see this as her attacking Hebrew as the language of the Jews. It is safe to assume that nearly all customers for a Hebrew edition would be Israeli. This fits in with the BDSMers' (as I like to call them, pun intended) previous actions; it doesn't seem like a big departure from their usual stupidity.
"…her support for the Hamas terrorists in Gaza are ill-informed." 'Ill-informed' is totally insufficient. Complicit in murder and terrorism is more correct. Imprisonment may be too good for her likes. What does Spielberg have to say about this? He produced the propaganda that this slut wrote. What does Whoopee Goldberg feel about this, having starred in that film?
How moved is Spielberg going to be after producing the anti-Israel propaganda film Munich written by the upstanding moral paragon Tony Kushner, containing numerous lies of omission and commission?
Tobin overstates his case. Calling Hebrew "the national language of the Jewish people" is absurd. Any Torah school student can tell you that biblical Hebrew is a world apart from modern Hebrew. And most diaspora Jews do NOT speak or read modern Hebrew. They speak and read another primary language and they pray in Biblical Hebrew. n nI strongly oppose the BDS movement, but let's not be dishonest about what Alice Walker's action really means. She has by no means crossed the line to "open expressions of Jew-hatred." She has prevented the translation of her own novel into modern Hebrew, as is any author's right. Does Tobin not support an authro's right to control her own creative output?
” And most diaspora Jews do NOT speak or read modern Hebrew. ”
I suppose that’s why they are so ignorant about the Middle East and its history, that’s so important, relying instead on the NYT and associated rags for context that only Thomas Friedman, the Cohens, Rroger and Richard, Beinart et al can create.
"Thomas Friedman, the Cohens, Rroger and Richard, Beinart et al can create." n nI wonder how many of them can read Hebrew.
apparently Diane does not know Hebrew, ancient or modern. Biblical Hebrew is not "a world apart from modern Hebrew." Moreover, the prayers were composed –it is believed– after the Bible and are not primarily written in Biblical Hebrew but in what is called Mishnaic Hebrew. However, many prayers do quote from the Bible, especially Psalms. I can tell you that Biblical Hebrew is much closer to the Modern than Old French and Old Spanish [medieval Castilian] are to the modern versions of those languages. nMy favorite alice walker quote came in a film about her attempt to break the blockade of Gaza in cooperation with the pro-terrorist Turkish IHH. She was asked, Why are you going to Gaza. She answered: Because I love children and trees etc. The woman sounds to me like a walking container of goody-goody bien pensant cliches and platitudes, which she uses opportunistically to promote herself.
"Rather than Israel being isolated, it is Walker who must now be treated by decent people everywhere as being as radioactive as anyone who supports racist incitement against African-Americans." n nThis, also, is over the top. Just last week I saw a blog post, I think on NRO, challanging the effrontery of some leftist blogger who had called for the shunning by "decent people" of a writer on the right. We mustn't forget the spirit of Milton's free market of ideas, the bedrock of democracy and intellectual freedom.
Fortunately, a lot of Israelis can read English and Arabic, so they can read a book I didn't think was very good.
Even if any of her books (if she wrote more than one) were really any good, in light of her publicly expressed anti-Semitism (masquerading in its modern, supposedly more "progressive" form of "anti-Zionism") every Jew has a moral obligation to boycott them (same goes for much greater people than she – Shakespeare, Pushkin, Wagner, Gogol, Dostoevsky). Let them (and their less nfamous followers) burn in hell in perpetuity until they repent.
i hope american high schools boycott her book from their english departments. i had to read it in school. not that great, anyway.
Don't count on it!
Does she know that Arabs figured prominently in the slave trade, and in fact, where slavery still exists in the world, it is usually Arabs holding blacks. Mauritania, Western Sahara, Sudan, even Saudi Arabia. n nDoes she care? Would it matter? n nDoes it matter to Farakhan? n n n
No, no, and no!
Does Alice Walker want to sell her book or does she want to oppose Israel in any way she can? Obviously, the latter. Anti-Zionism is an utterly pointless and selfless movement. The people whom it most hurts are the Palestinians. If opposing Israel didin't take precedence over supporting independence, there could have been a Palestinian state long ago. nIsrael is the most hated country on earth. That's why some Palestinians still have to live in refugee camps after 60 years. nEvil is always selfless.
"selfless" I think you meant selfish? Or heartless. n nPalestinians are also the UN's first "hereditary" refugees. How many more decades will it take for them to grow up and stop whining about their lot in life? They lost the war, so use the land they're on to make something of themselves, just as the Jews have had to do on equally minuscule and barren territory.
By "selfless" I meant totally pointless and impractical. It is more important to anti-Zionists to oppose Israel than to do anything that might be useful to them.
Amen.
Palestinians are defined by their hatred of Israel and Jews. Without it they wouldn't exist — they would have no reason to exist — and they know it. They are at once pitiful and tragic. They and other well-publicized savages — Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Somalies, Maghrebis — in fact most Arabs and Africans — look into their dark houses and see nothing there. They have NOTHING to give to the world, and the technology which brings a world of peoples who do give to the world imposes an utter despair upon them, of ever being a part of that world. While technology has eliminated spacial remoteness, it has brought home cultural remoteness. n nHow can the Palestinians and the others ever reconcile themselves to their permanent alienation from a vital, civil, humane world? They embrace their alienation, they make their atavism a virtue. They become, like all extremists, creatures of their resentments. n nPerhaps the only cure is generational. Gradually, Walker's constituency will come around and join humanity. Meanwhile, it's up to us to combat them and their leftist apologists' fatuous conceit of cultural relativism.
I mean “selfless.” Anti-Semites are willing to suffer and gain nothing in order to hurt Jews or Israel. They don’t care what happens to them. All they want is to do what they think (idioticlly) is right.
There has been a Palestinian – (allowing you to use that entirely inaccurate and highly politicized term) state since the British hived off 3/4 of the League of Nations Palestinian Mandate to create Trans-Jordan in 1921 for the exiled Hashemites from Arabia. Somewhere between 70-80% of the Jordanian population claim to be "Palestinian". It is time that those who claim to support Israel end their largesse with the very greedy Arabs by wanting to offer them another "Palestinian" and Arab state once again carved out of the meager remnants of the Mandate state, which was to be a homeland for the Jews.
Evil is always selfless. n nYes indeed, like the Waffen SS soldier died for his Führer or the Kamikaze died for his Emperor. Or the suicide bomber dies for Allah. n nYet, not always selfless. Greed, a creature of selfishness, is evil, yet In America greed is raised to a virtue.
Why should it surprise anyone that a black leftist "intellectual" is an Israel basher? The is the type of scum that populates the precincts of the coalition of scum, slime, filth, vermin and manure that populates the Democ-rat party. It seems to make no difference to her that Arabs are killing each other in Syria and this is how they seem to govern each other throughout the Arab world, when a brutal dictator is not maintaining the "peace." n nAlice Walker is a literary Jesse Jackson. To say that she and others of her ilk are beneath contempt only would serve to raise their stature. n nSelective book purchasing in the United States is called for here.
Excuse me. I am a Democrat, voted for Obama, support Israel, and despise Jesse Jackson. I live in Chicago and have reasons for all of the foregoing.
I notice that "snark" is part of his or her code. He or she has that quality that seems to be endemic to his or her fellow Chicagoan, David Plouffe. How anyone who supports Israel and despises Jesse Jackson can remain a Democ-rat is beyond any logic.
The is the type of scum that populates the precincts of the coalition of scum, slime, filth, vermin and manure that populates the Democ-rat party. n nAnd you get lots of votes for that? Well, it certainly belies a certain standard of quality here. n
I'd say the quality is simply terrific! And unlike "snark" or whatever his or her name is, I'm not really looking for popularity but to make the point that Democ-rat are the lowest from of life that walks the American earth, particularly Democ-rats of Jewish origin who refuse to see that the coalition of scum, slime, filth, vermin and manure is not worthy of support from any decent American, leave alone Jewish voters. n nTo write that about a Party led by a second rater who proves the truth of waht Dukakis said about how a fish rots, assisted by a quasi crfiminal such as Eric Holder, a Red Diaper Baby such as David Axelrod and a snark such as David Plouffe only serves to raise its statured!
Alice Walker is a no-talent, self-important media creation anyway. Why would anyone want to waste time reading her drivel?
Alice Walker's book is a piece of garbage. Does anyone read it unless forced to do so in high school English? I called it a piece of garbage years ago when the Santa Cruz California school district started dropping classics by Dickens, Tolstoy et al in order to make room for "relevant" rubbish like Walker's book.
Another leftist who hates Jews. What a surprise. n nNow, if only the secular left-wing Jews will wake up and realize that their fellow lefties are not friends.
Christine_S – not our friends. Like the fellow “righties” that are your friends? The ones who want Israel to exist so that all the Jews can go back there to be annihilated when Jesus comes back? (given, that it is a complete fantasy, but one that they believe, and motivates their “love” of Israel)
"so that all the Jews can go back there to be annihilated when Jesus comes back" n nyee haa marybeth
What a futile waste of time trying to defend Israel against the apartheit bloodlibel. Walker and her ilk are Nazi scum and must be addressed as such
Antisemitism is now chic on the Left, didn't you know?
Alice Walker can go back to Africa where she will enjoy living among enlightened and free people who tolerate all religions and ethnicities and sexual orientations. Oops, the only such country in that neck of the woods would be… Israel. Let her go be a lesbian in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Iran and we'll see how long that lasts.
Alice Walker seeks to deny "oppressors" access to her words, thereby insuring that they'll never have access to her point of view, either. Therefore, if Alice Walker's viewpoint is worthwhile, she's also denying Hebrew-speaking people the chance to benefit from it AND POSSIBLY CHANGE THEIR WAYS. n nSo nu, is she helping her cause or actually hurting it? n nMaybe it's just more satisfying to make the Israelis wrong, than to actually try to improve things. Spite makes right! n nThis leftist disenfranchised Jew (who reads Commentary) will vote with her wallet.
I'm thrilled to do part of my little part: I'm continuing my boycott of Alice Walker–it's gone on for years: she will continue to be irrelevant to me save for opportunities to proclaim the fact of her self righteous anti Semitism.
P.S. this was a superb post by Tobin, both in substance and in strong, clear writing.
Black anti-Israel sentiment does a disservice to African Americans who were treated with unbelievable inhumanity in this country during slavery and before the civil rights movement and to blacks in South Africa who suffered under apartheid. An equivalency is often made between the black experience and that of Palestinians, who have far more rights and more freedom and a higher standard of living than blacks did even a generation ago in this country or in SA. nPerhaps Alice Walker should be more concerned about female genital mutilation in Arab and African countries than about the Palestinians who want to wipe Israel off the map.
Alice Walker has not earned the right to lecture Israelis and Jews on morality. Ms. Walker's daughter wrote a memoir of growing up as Alice Walker's daughter. Alice Walker was either missing from her daughter's life or indifferent or critical. One would think that a woman with this track record would want to keep a low profile. But in the case of Alice Walker, this is a person who knows no shame.
At least the Hebrew language will not be desecrated by that piece of garbage that passes for literature.
Are you people serious? Alice Walker is a hero of civil rights and equality, exposing the brutality and horror of racism in the US, and the equal horror of the apartheid Zionist entity against innocent Palestinians, who just want to live in peace in their own lands that have been theirs for centuries. I can only shake my head as Zionists rush to attack a paragon of decency, justice, and courage. Until there is true justice in the Middle East, there can be no peace in the world. The ridiculousness of basing an entire country on 2000-year-old writings and displacing the proper and legitimate residents and forcing them to live in abject poverty and suffering and indignity staggers the mind. Someday you people will wake up and understand the moral courage of someone like Alice Walker, who has suffered in a way you could never possibly understand. It is a disgrace to all of Western civilization.
This is parody, right? The one true sentence in your post is that the racism that was allowed to exist in the US was brutal and horific. Any by the time Alice Walker was writing about it, it had been deprived of the power and toleration it once had held.
yes the book was written in 1982, at the height of the civil rights struggle n nand Palestinians "just want to leave in peace" n n"in their own lands that have been theirs for centuries" n nIsrael is "ridiculous" and "forces Palestinians to live in abject poverty and suffering" n nand Alice Walker "has suffered in a way you could never possibly understand" n nkeep it flowing
A few short years ago Arabs murdered hundreds of thousands of black African farmers in Darfur, and ethnically cleansed two million, and raped countless women. The victims had done nothing to provoke their faith. About that Alice Walker and her crowd have been virtually silent. r nr nThey are angry at white Jews over an injustice suffered 64 years ago, by 700,000 Palestinian (colored) farmers who fled their land in the course of a war their leaders provoked.r n r nPart of the explanation is racism. r nr nBut there are many who are not racists, including Jews, who are similarly perplexed and infuriated by the Palestine/Israel conflict. What explains their chagrin? r nr nThey are provoked by the fact that ever since 1947 a relatively handful have outperformed their neighbors not just as soldiers on the battlefield, but as farmers, technicians, scholars, scientists, artists, etc. They continue to win against 50 to 1 odds. r nr nAt the bottom of it all is this: to survive Israel has been steadily defying the two central beliefs of out time: democracy and equality. It is not her fault, but it is nevertheless her fate to defy and question those principles. r nr nUntil we find a good answer, Israel will continue to antagonize, not just the third world but millions of well-intentioned Americans and Europeans whose very creed she challenges.
A few short years ago Arabs murdered hundreds of thousands of black African farmers in Darfur, and ethnically cleansed two million, and raped countless women. The victims had done nothing to provoke their faith. About that Alice Walker and her crowd have been virtually silent. n nThey are angry at white Jews over an injustice suffered 64 years ago, by 700,000 Palestinian (colored) farmers who fled their land in the course of a war their leaders provoked. n nPart of the explanation is racism. n nBut there are many who are not racists, including Jews, who are similarly perplexed and infuriated by the Palestine/Israel conflict. What explains their chagrin? n nThey are provoked by the fact that ever since 1947 a relatively handful have outperformed their neighbors not just as soldiers on the battlefield, but as farmers, technicians, scholars, scientists, artists, etc. They continue to win against 50 to 1 odds. n nAt the bottom of it all is this: to survive Israel has been steadily defying the two central beliefs of out time: democracy and equality. It is not her fault, but it is nevertheless her fate to defy and question those principles. n nUntil we find a good answer, Israel will continue to antagonize, not just the third world but millions of well-intentioned Americans and Europeans whose very creed she challenges.
The problem isn't Israel-bashing anti-Semites who use "It is possible to criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite" as a fig leaf. They are a dime a dozen. The problem is those with a podium. As long as hustlers-as-gurus keep poisoning public discourse, they'll recruit the credulous. There's cheap titillation in having one's biases validated by celebrities. n nWalker, in her highfalutin way, is in the same place with Israel and Jews as The Rev. Jesse was, with his "Hymietown" and "Hymies" — common black jargon reflecting pervasive anti-Semitism amongst African-Americans. So, Walker's animus against Israel and Jews is really about her predisposition arising from her culture. She's the racist!
I concur with your assessment and believe that before embracing some what appears to be undeniably just cause, movement etc. we, Jews, should remember very old but true adage: "No good deed goes unpunished" so as to not to be haunted by our ill-advised involvement for the rest of our and our progeny's lives.
A publicity stunt by a black racist ,one hit wonder ,who needs to revive her brand, is par for the course. But how will Obama react to this?Will any establishment journalists even question him on it.? Can it be turned into a wedge issue assuming Obama responds with the typical foggy verbiage he uses when he fears alienating his hard left anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright base.?.Walker is obviously a moral imbecile- and so are the Jews she cites in her statement as her supporters.
Wow. So you guys lost “Saint Alice” too, now. Tsk, tsk.
Quit simply, Alice Walker has proven herself to be a despicable human being. It never ceases to amaze me that people find any excuse to criticze Israel all the while ignoring any evil that is committed against Israel. If an Israeli Jew merely defends herself or himself in self-defense, it is the Jew who does what is evil — not the person who, in the first place, attacked the Jew. By refusing to allow the translation of her book —The Color Purple— into Hebrew, Alice Walker has thereby revealed herself to be a most recalcitrant and venemoous antisemitic individual. –
"Walker became interested in the U.S. civil rights movement in part due to the influence of activist Howard Zinn, who was one of her professors at Spelman College" and Jewish.
"It is possible to criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite." n nI suppose so- if you live in Israel. If you don't, it usually betrays a sick obsession that's an attempted cover for anti-Semitism. We have to stop "conceding" this point. No, it's *not* OK to criticize Israel unless you spend as much time criticizing the hundred or more other countries that are much worse.
You can call people anti-Semites all you want, and bang your fists on the table for emphasis if you wish. The problem is that your "j'accuse" will never be be treated with the respect or fear that you wish it would — indeed it will simply be derided — as long as you are someone who is perceived as endorsing racism yourself. in fact, among certain circles, you will be merely goading on those whom you accuse.
So on what grounds do you perceive that he is endorsing racism?
By supporting the Israeli government. Just yesterday the Israeli interior minister said Israel "belongs to the white man," so don't even try what you were going to try.
The mask is completely off now. n nIn fairness to you, I will state that Israel was probably not significantly racist in 1948, in 1967, etc. But now is now.
We must admit that modern anti-semitism is legitimized by prominent Jewish leftists and ant-isemites.S.Spielberg`s participation in her carrier is evident,for instance. nJewish moral influence in the terrible 20th century was high and today many Jewish anti-semites use it in the evil.The delegitimization of Israel by leftist intelligentsia is supported by them.They help to clean anti-semites from the lebel of the racism.
I live in Chicago and African American women here (I call them the Color Purple Lobby) have pushed this whole Alice Walker stuff in my face since I got here. They wear purple shirts and other clothing items as a sign of solidarity with this anti-semite. And you DO NOT want to be jewish around them ….as I am. They are extremely mean and they have no respect for any one elses rights or the LAW when it comes to harrassing others in an anti-semitic way!!!! Everyone should go to her websites and see the things that she supports. She is an absolute lunatic.