Zionist Punk Behavior
Cross-Currents has a great article deploring the behavior of Israeli teens in Poland. No, really.
Jonathan Rosenblum writes in “Negating the Past, Dishonoring the Present,�
The egregious behavior of secular Israeli high schools students in Poland – long a source of embarrassment – has now reached such a crescendo as to threaten Polish-Israeli relations. The May 25 Jerusalem Post quoted the Polish ambassador to Israel, “[H]igh level relations are not in danger, but the image of Israel in Poland is.� And the Israeli ambassador to Poland went even further saying, “the relationship between Israel and Poland is in danger.�
The latest in a long-line of scandals involving the behavior of Israeli teenagers on visits to Poland was triggered by a report in the Polish paper Prezekroj accusing Israeli teens of tearing apart their hotel rooms, playing soccer in the hallways of their hotels in the middle of the night, engaging in the lowest imaginable behaviors, and of humiliating the flight attendants on Lot Airlines, the Polish national carrier. The Prezekroj article was, unfortunately, not the first such report to surface in recent years.
The most charitable explanation for the behavior of the Israeli teens is that they were undergoing some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder after the jarring experience of visiting so many mass graves and concentration camps[...] That explanation, however, is too charitable by a considerable margin. At the very least, it would suggest that something is dramatically wrong with Holocaust education in Israel if what the Israeli high school students witnessed in Poland so shocked them that they lost all sense of boundaries.
Rosenblum offers an explanation for the Zionist teens abusive behavior from the greatest living Jewish writer, Ahron Appelfeld, who is not particularly appreciated by Israelis.
A few years back, Appelfeld accused Zionism of having followed the path of modern ideological movements in its negation of the past – in this case, the history of the Jewish Diaspora. The result, he said, is that many modern Israelis have “amputated their past� and left a “black hole of identity� in its place.
Appelfeld went so far as to accuse modern Israelis of having internalized the anti-Semites’ critique of the Diaspora Jew to the point that everything “that obliges them to remember that they are Jews makes them flinch [and] aroused disgust in them.�
Whatever the cause, this has to stop, and it has to stop now. We cannot have Zionist punks threatening international relations between nations and communities. This is as absurd as it is obscene.
17 comments
I’m not surprised that kids are acting that way, I’m just surprised that they didn’t include the absurd behavior of American teens, too.
did you know there’s no word for civilized in modern hebrew?
mohammed,
And is there one in ancient Hebrew?
also religious Israeli kids are not much better, both in state schools and the Charedish. it’s an aspect of life there that I must admit, I sweep under the rug, but kudos for Rosenblum for having the guts to publish this. But yeah they should stop sending them unless the kids are hand picked.
I’ve seen other articles from people who chaperone these trips denying the allegations. I’d like to see far more information, frankly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some bad apples among all of the kids who go over there, but it seems false on the face of it to ascribe this negative behavior to “secular Israel high school students.” That’s blaming all the students. You just need a couple of idiots to make a bad impression.
Anyway, I recall living in Canada back in high school and going to visit another city with the entire grade. Some of us got into trouble for being overly noisy at the hotel. It’s called testosterone. Male high school students tend to have it in abundance. We meant to have fun, not to indicate any disrespect for our American hosts. I’m an upstanding citizen now, paying taxes and mowing my lawn in the suburbs. In the US.
TM, this was reported in the Jerusalem Post.
I saw it, Kelsey. The report originates from ONE Polish publication which doesn’t seem to be a large publication at that. So what? Is all news and are all reporters right all the time? Is it possible somebody saw an angle for a story and ran with it?
Some Auschwitz museum administrators are also complaining about behavior of Israeli kids and one of the Israeli chaperons wrote that the Israelis behaved appropriately but the administrators were angry to see them walking around with Israeli flags. Is that really offensive?
I need to see more information from first-hand sources to decide whether all of these Israeli kids are really out of line. Also, as I mentioned, it could just be a bunch of boys being boys. It happens. Making it into a national story with antagonism between two nations is a different category of “bad” altogether.
Right now, as you can see if you visit our site, there is a great deal of Polish sensitivity to Israel and Jews’ perceived antipathy toward them. If I were Polish, I’d also be sensitive. Then again, I’ve sat around enough elderly Jewish Poles who didn’t have favorable things to say about the antisemitism they encountered in their youth to know that some corners of that society will not be above speaking ill of Jews.
Provide me with some more first-hand accounts, including those of Israelis who were there and then we can have an informed discussion.
DK
I have no way of knowing. All we have are the remnants of the language used in tanach.
It’s quite possible they did.
Of course there’s a fucking word for “civilized” in modern Hebrew - “m’turbat,” from the verb “l’tarbet” (to civilize), from the word “tarbut” (culture/civilization).
Hey Mohammed, did you know that there are giant alligators in the New York sewers, and that Orthodox Jews have sex through a hole in the sheet? Pretty crazy stuff!
Tarbut means culture, not civilized. Of course which culture are we yapping about?
as SK said, tarbut is culture, mturbat is cultured.
ezrach is civilian but there’s no parallel for civilization or civilized.
No, it’s also “civilized,” and if you don’t believe me, an Israeli, look it up in a dictionary. Words do not have to exactly correspond to English’s many shades of meaning - especially in a language with a much smaller vocabulary - to describe the same concept. Do you really think a living, modern language has no word for what is essentially the central theme of human development? Oh, it’s glib and cute - “Ha ha, Israelis are so uncivilized they don’t even have a word for it!” - but it’s about as linguistically sound as claiming there’s no word for penis in Yiddish.
Actually, according to the Hebrew-English dictionary which I own, Michael is correct. Also, modern Hebrew borrows words from many languages and “civilized” is often “civilizatzia” in spoken Hebrew. The dictionary told me that as well.
If the claim, however, is that somehow Israel is lacking in being civilized, I would challenge the person making that claim to visit Israel where forms of art abound. I recall, for example, that Israelis purchase more books per capita than any other country. It’s simply a silly accusation.
TM
your dictionary is wrong then. ציבילזציה
is used for civilization, there’s nothing comparable for civilized.
This is a highly silly discussion and I am sorry i butted in. This is the kind of thing that the smarmy
Anti Medina Yeshiva people used to engage in, but I see that they still do. They enjoy putting Israel down and poking fun, because they disaprove of the secular Israelis who built it and still run it, or for whatever sick reasons that motivate their sickness.
They do use Tarbut as a double meaning in that sense Michael is right. They would refer to hooliganistic behavior as people who are without Tarbut. Or lehitnaheg bitzurah Hogennet might work.
And what is the big deal if a particular word does not have an exact Hebrew counterpart? What is Mohamed trying to imply?
In the sage words of William S. Burroughs:
“Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill.
Tell them firmly:
I am not paid to listen to this drivel.
You are a terminal fool.”
Mohammed, I’m impressed whenever I encounter someone who speaks Hebrew better than my dictionary. Hats off to you.
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