ED NOTE: Welcome our newest writer to the team, SCHWARTZY!
I was surfing the web the other day when I came across an article titled “Was Shakespeare Anti-Semetic?”. Now, I did not read the article (knowing the truth about things makes it harder to make fun of them) — though I’m sure it was a well-written and high-quality article living up to the exacting standards of HipsterJew.com (wink wink) — but I saw no reason to read it. Why? Because I already knew the answer to the question. Was Shakespeare anti-semetic? OF COURSE SHAKESPEARE WAS ANTI-SEMETIC!
How could he not be!? Almost everyone in Victorian Europe was at least a little bit! You know how even the least prejudiced person you know locks their doors when a grungy black man walks by their car? Well no matter how progressive you were in the 1600’s, I promise you when a Jew strolled by you kept your wallet close.
Whether because of good ol’ fashioned racism or just ignorance and lack of knowledge about Jews, Shakespeare and everyone else living at the time was anti-Semetic. Is “Merchant Of Venice” anti-Semitic?…oh yeah. Has this play done irrevocable harm to Jews, stereotyping us and probably leading to some beatings over the last 400 years?…most definitely! But, so what? We all still read Shakespeare’s plays. I’ve read almost all of Shakespeare’s plays. He’s a great talent. I respect his writing immensely. I have no problem with him being anti-Semitic, and you shouldn’t either.
It’s time to move away from this whole “Well, this guy 200 years ago was anti-Semitic” type of talk. Because, quite simply, EVERYONE was anti-Semitic. EVERYONE. It’s not fair to judge people’s work based on that anymore. I’ll give you an example. Here are just some of the companies that profited off Jewish Slave labor in the Nazi death camps: Kodak, IBM, Volkswagen, Hugo Boss (actually willingly joined the Nazi Party himself), Bayer, Ford, Chase Bank, Siemens… the list goes on and on. Should we never sleep on a Siemens mattress again? Should I never again take a Kodak picture of myself masturbating with an IBM computer into a Hugo Boss handkerchief while sitting in a Volkswagen making an electronic deposit into my Chase bank account? Of course not! That would be silly! Because in 1940, EVERYONE was anti-Semitic.
I’m not saying the Holocaust doesn’t matter. Of course it does. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t hate Anti-Semites. Hate Shaksespeare! Hate the CEO of Kodak during the Holocaust! Frankly, I hope that all the people who ran these companies 70 years ago are being punished in some Jewish equivalent of hell (a basketball court?), but who cares right now?! Forget about those old dead anti-Semites. Let’s deal with the new anti-Semites; those are the ones that matter. Let’s accept that Shakespeare was an anti-Semite. Let’s accept that Walt Disney was a rabid anti-Semite, that Mercedes produced custom engines that personally incinerated Jews in the death camps, that Siemens wanted to trademark “Zyklon B”, that Hitler himself named the Volkswagen Beetle, because their current products now have nothing to do with that sordid history!
It’s time for us Jews to not be shocked anymore if someone is anti-Semitic. It’s time for us to just assume that everyone is anti-Semitic. In fact, I’m surprised when people aren’t anti-Semitic. History tells us it’s actually pretty normal. The weird people are the ones that like the Jews! It should not shock us anymore when Helen Thomas says anti-Semitic crap; it shouldn’t surprise us when Glenlivet no longer wants to sell to Israel; it should no longer astonish us when Desmond Tutu opens up his big fat mouth. Let’s simply accept this inevitable truth… that everyone in the world who ever lived is probably, at least a little, definitely, absolutely anti-Semitic, and move on as stronger, less insane people.
