You might have heard about the controversy in Lake Oswego, Oregon, about seven miles south of Portland, where, in a misguided effort to promote a screening of The Odyssey, the theater's marquee read, "Before there were the Jews, there was…The Odyssey."1
And, might I add, before there was The Odyssey, there were people so obsessed with Jews they had to bring them up in every conversation. Like this guy.
It’s not as bad as the bumper sticker popularized during the 1970’s oil crisis, “Burn Jews, Not Oil,”2 but it’s pretty bad.
And it’s not as bad as this sticker (below) found last March at a gas station in Ohio during the first price surge at the pumps as the Iran War got underway. Notice that it says nothing about Israel. It just blames the Jews - using vile, hook-nosed stereotypes reminiscent of Nazi Germany. One wonders how long this sticker stayed there. Is it still there today?
When you see something like this, an easy tell is when people put “the” before “Jews.” It’s totally different to say “Jews did this.” Yeah, some Jews were involved. But “THE Jews,” that’s a whole different matter. The Oregon marquee lumped all Jews together, each and every one, from Stephen Miller to Bernie Sanders to Henry Kissinger.
In Oregon, the theater’s manager defended his marquee’s message by claiming it was a comment on the “timeline of human mythology,” noting that Homer's poem “predates the formal codification of the Jewish religion.”
Not true, Bacchanalian Breath! Homer lived around the 8th century BCE, by which time biblical Israelites had received the Ten Commandments and built a temple in Jerusalem where those tablets could reside, that is until Indiana Jones unearthed them somewhere in the 1980s. In fact, I don’t believe there was ever a formal codification of the Jewish religion at all, or for that matter, a single Jewish religion to codify. Many strands of Judaism evolved from the pivotal period of world history known as the Axial Age, from the 8th to the 3rd century BC (and add the E if you are Jewish).
But I digress.
My point is that the theater’s general manager added “the Jews” to the marquee not knowing a thing about Jewish history and with Jews and Judaism having nothing to do with the film. It was a gratuitous swipe at a group already shaken by recent events, and while it may or may not have been an act of antisemitism, at the very least it was horrible, ill-timed trolling.
It’s exploitative too, much like using the word “sex” in a book or movie title, a primal trigger that instantly focuses attention. People are simply triggered by, and infinitely curious about, Jews. 3 So he got some extra eyeballs. Mazal tov.
Sometimes putting Jews in Broadway lights can be a positive, as in this song from Spamalot.
You may have dramatic lighting
Or lots of horrid fighting
You may even have some white men sing the blues!
…You may have dancing man a mano
You may bring on a piano
But they will not give a damn-o
If you don't have any Jews!
Some actually considered that song antisemitic, but not anyone who knows the work of Monty Python. An ode to Jews on Broadway is hardly a shock when one of the show’s other songs originally featured a kick-stepping Jesus on the cross.
Have Jews become everyone’s bogeyman and everyone's punchline too? And before you say that I’m overreacting, let’s hear this theater manager out.
While responding to panicked reactions among Portland-area Jews by saying that he would take down the marquee message, he then said this, as quoted in the Lake Oswego Review:
Through the media I consume, I believe modern-day antisemitism is exaggerated, mostly as a defense for Israel’s actions in the Middle East and its involvement in our politics, and my intention in referencing Jewish people on the marquee was to prod at everything being seemingly antisemitic with a statement that couldn’t possibly be construed as antisemitic.
So let me unpack this:
First, this guy should watch Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ keynote speech to the European Parliament, The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism:
The late Chief Rabbi stated (in 2016):
Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else. It takes different forms in different ages. In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century they were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, the state of Israel. It takes different forms but it remains the same thing: the view that Jews have no right to exist as free and equal human beings.
The general manager says he put Jews on the marquee as a means of telling Jews to chill out about all the accusations of antisemitism. And he did that by literally calling attention to Jews’ sensitivity on the matter, by screaming it to the world. He was trying to call us on our supposed defense of Israel’s actions and, as he put it, “its involvement in our politics.”
Who’s involvement is he talking about? Israel’s? American Jews? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on who “its” is. And why should any Jew feel defensive about being involved in American politics? Why does that deserve the Times Square neon treatment? And to “prod” at these churning, open wounds by literally throwing it up on the marquee… yes, that’s surely going to calm our nerves.
In theatrical terms, a “marquee event” is a headliner, and Jews, Israel and antisemitism have become the headliners of this political season. While candidates are paying lip service to the economy and healthcare, the red-meat issue for progressives - but not only progressives - has become Jews.
We’ve become the headliner of this election, the red meat for the faithful, the “I’m gonna build a wall and Manischewitz will pay for it.” Israel has become like all the greatest hits from the fascist rallies of yore, the “fake news” muzzled in a pen, the Mexican rapists, the dog-eating Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Yes, in the Trump rally that has become American politics on all sides, Jews are the new greatest hit.
We’re the marquee. We’re the writing on that wall.
If you don’t believe me, check the transcripts and videos of rallies of any of the Genocide Juicers. Trashing Israel in this demagogic manner is mindless, unproductive, self-defeating and catastrophically stupid.
And ironically, because Israel is no longer a wedge issue, you won’t see Republicans bringing up Israel in the fall to attack even the most Squad-ish Dem. If they say anything it all (and given the state of the Iran War, they will likely run far away from foreign policy), they’ll say “My opponent wants to stop supporting Israel….and that’s alright with me!”
While Israel has brought much of the criticism on itself, the country is in the midst of an election campaign that could change things dramatically. It could literally change the course of history - unless our American candidates’ relentless animus toward Israelis screws it up for moderate forces there.
And it is equally self-defeating for politicians here to keep putting Israel and Jews up on that marquee. Already, lifelong Democrats in Michigan are hearing Abdul El-Sayed feed red meat, neither kosher nor halal, to his crowds, and many Jews and others are left wondering if they might now consider voting for the Republican in November. For those concerned about saving democracy, this is a mind-numbingly idiotic own goal by the Dems.
It’s hard for me to disagree with those lifelong Democrats when I hear candidates like Abdul El-Sayed sidestepping questions about Israel’s right to exist, saying on CNN that “every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values."
Huh? I guess he hasn’t read Israel’s Declaration of Independence. I suggest he read it alongside Hamas’s Charter.
Candidates have a right to their positions, but the drone of repeatedly trolling Jews with anti-Israel tropes, including the Trump-like repetition of accusations of genocide, as if it is now a given, as if “everyone knows it,” seem designed simply to inflame the base and provoke hatred toward the moderate Jew, the one who grew up with a dream of a Jewish state that would be of service to humankind. That dream is far from fulfillment, and it faces an immediate future of uncertainty, peril and shame, but it would be hard to vote for someone who wants to quash it - and takes joy in that objective.
I’ve always cast a suspicious eye at demagoguery, especially when it comes from the mouth of one of my coreligionists who should know better, from Bibi Netanyahu on the right to Bernie Sanders on the left. I too sometimes fall the trap of seeking scapegoats to put up on the marquee, but I know the danger of that kind of manipulation. We must all resist it (with one presidential exception).
The existential necessity now is to defeat Trumpism, whose dangers cannot be exaggerated. And that means to defeat Susan Collins in Maine, Mike Rogers in Michigan, Ken Paxton in Texas, and a few dozen others whose races will determine the future of the American experiment. Let’s leave (the) Jews out of this, please. After November, there will be plenty of time to discuss Israel, and believe me, AIPAC’s role in future elections has already been severely diminished. You’ve won that battle, Bernie Bros. Now move on to a far more important battle - and that one requires unity, and maybe a little humility.
It’s time to turn off the marquee.
And as for Lake Oswego, I know nothing about it other than it seems to be quite well-off. There is a synagogue, so there are some Jews, but according to a historian James W. Loewen, locals often call it "Lake No Negro" in reference to its reputation as an elite white suburb. Lake Oswego received significant media attention in 2020 when a resident received an anonymous letter from neighbors asking them to take down their "Black Lives Matter" sign from the window, complaining that it lowered property values. The Native Americans who named the place are long gone.
So it sounds like the perfect place for a movie theater to troll minorities.
Before there were the Jews, there was “The Odyssey?”
The claim is definitely not true. See below visual proof that Homer himself had a close connection to notable Jews, and might even have been a Member of the Tribe:
Reminder to Abdul and the other Bernie Bros. It’s the economy, stupid!
D’oh!
Thank you to a reader and subscriber, who called my attention to this outrage.
Despite concerns, the increase in antisemitism from the Arab oil boycott was limited and support for Israel did not waver. Pollster Louis Harris made these interesting observations in April 1975:
Taken together, the cumulative effect of the events of the last year and a half seem to have produced three main conceptions in many American minds: (1) Jewish power could well be eroding in the United States, accordingly weakening the lifeline to Israel; (2) traditional Israeli intransigence would no longer be tolerated; (3) with the decline of sympathy for Israel and the growth of Arab power, a spate of anti‐Semitism could well break out in the Western world.
The trouble with almost all of this is that it simply doesn’t square with prevailing public opinion in the United States. And the single group which most underestimates the pro‐Israel sentiment in this country and most overestimates the possibility of the anti‐Semitism is none other than the American Jewish community. Instead of slipping away, support for Israel is now at a record peak. A recent Harris survey indicates that 52 percent of the public now sympathizes with Israel, up sharply from the 39 percent who felt that way in 1973, right after the Yom Kippur War. By contrast, 7 percent of the American people expressed sympathy with the Arab side in the Middle Eastern conflict. A national leadership group drawn from government and politics, business, labor, communications, education, religion, and voluntary organizations was 56 percent in sympathy with Israel, while only 5 percent supported the Arab cause.
Later this year, Congress must decide whether to give Israel $1.8‐billion in military aid, a much higher sum than that country has ever asked for before. American public opinion has not always favored sending military assistance to Israel. Back in 1967, when Israel was rolling up its smashing victory of the Six Day War, a 39 percent to 35 percent plurality of the public opposed sending military aid. During the 1973 war, opinion shifted and a relatively narrow 46 to 34 percent plurality supported aid.
But now, even as the myth of Israel’s invincibility has lost its hold on the public, support for sending weapons to Israel has grown enormously. A rather lopsided 66 to 24 percent majority favors sending Israel what it needs in the way of military hardware. (Some have suggested that the very size of this margin might tempt the Israelis to bypass the Administration and take their case, no doubt ill-advisedly, to the public and the Congress directly.) This is all the more remarkable in view of the decisive 65 to 22 percent majority who oppose this country’s giving military aid in general and the 74 to 17 percent who oppose sending any more military assistance to Vietnam.
These findings about the attitudes of Americans towards the Arab‐Israeli conflict and toward Jews in the United States came from a survey that was finished by the second week of January. Two major groups were interviewed: First the public, in the form of a representative national cross section of 3,377 adults, including a number of Jews; and, second, the leadership community, a total of 491 persons who are opinion leaders in such areas as business, government, religion, education, labor and communication.
The obvious conclusion to be drawn from the survey is that when Israel is seen as a tough, cocky Sparta, the top military power in the Middle East, most Americans feel little sense of urgency to send aid. But when Israel appears to be the underdog, alone and surrounded by hostile Arabs, then a better than 3 to 1 majority wants to send military aid. (In passing, I should point out that only 34 percent of the public is confident that Israel would win another war.) Thus, Israeli leaders who think the world always wants to ride with a winner may be sorely underestimating the compassion of the American people for the underdog. Of course, there are other reasons for this overwhelming support for military aid for Israel (which rises to an even higher 75 to 13 percent majority among the leaders). One is a persistent worry about the Russians and their arms. As a mechanic in Youngstown, Ohio, put it: “I hear the Russians have sent the Arabs all their latest planes and missiles. So we better do the same or Israel will be wiped out, and Russia will take over the whole area.”
It must be said that only one out of four Americans would approve sending American troops to the Middle East even “if Israel were being defeated by the Arabs,” and there are some who will find this a very distressing figure. But this is a very remote scenario and the Israelis have always insisted that they would never ask for troops. The reluctance to send troops should not be taken as a sign of an erosion of American support for more military aid for Israel, To the contrary, there is every sign that such backing is at a peak.
That accounts for the double standards applied to Israel, which will lead Mayor Mamdani to consider arresting Bibi but not the leaders of Russia, Myanmar, China, Sudan, Turkey, Serbia, Australia, America and a host of other nations accused of genocide over the years. See and click on the chart below.
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