Civilized
Let’s be honest: the world has changed little
since it was common knowledge that Jews
are humanity’s enemy. Hitler
was just somewhat extreme. Fast and loose.
Some think he was all right, but that’s faulty.
Our approaches are more civilized.
Killing Jews is sometimes too revolting.
Some may still do so. Not we. We’re nice.
We’re humane and repulsed by gas chambers.
There are other good ways to stop breaths.
They must know that there will be no changes,
that wherever they are—it is death.
That it’s coming. It’s close. It is here.
Left or right—that’s a matter of taste.
There’s nowhere they can hide from their fear.
Some use rockets. We make them feel chased.
Some still vulgarly cut them to pieces,
rape and burn—children, parents—a drag.
We’ll support that and anyone that pleases.
But we are civilized—not to brag.
Michael Vanyukov is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Psychiatry, and Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. He immigrated to the United States 30 years ago as a refugee from the Soviet Union.
Michael, such a sad commentary on being Jewish. The is deep anguish embedded in your poem that may not be evident to all. The left and right of the political spectrum is a horseshoe with the ends on the left and right far closer in their attitudes than they are to the moderate middle. I may show this in a future submission of my poem on the subject. There are so many hidden ways to kill those some regard as enemies other than gas chambers and firing squads as you have shown us in your exposé.
Thank you, Roy, for your clear vision. I tried to show the hypocrisy that motivates the Hamas supporters who pretend they care for Gaza Arabs.
Michael, you cleverly depict the thinking of anti-semitic persons who consider themselves superior to “uncivilized” others. The poem explores a certain kind of mind you have undoubtedly observed. In the poem’s first half, the idea that Jews are “humanity’s enemies” lies in the past. However, even in the past, this hostility was “common knowledge,” which means it was an attitude shared by many, possibly in an unthinking manner. The speakers of the poem do not claim it, but do acknowledge it. In fact, they say “the world has changed little.”
From “changed little” in line 1 to “there will be no changes” in line 11, sounds startling. Back to the old ways of the world? In line 16, we hear the speakers themselves only want to make Jews “feel chased.” They will use psychological violence, but no physical violence, although they describe the more extreme violence done by others, and in line 19 say, “We support that.” And in the poem’s final line, they turn back again to being “civilized.”
Obviously, the confused thinking shown here is definitely dangerous to Jews. I think you hold it up for close examination in order to make your readers examine their own thinking–and to examine their responses to falsely “civilized” speech when we hear it. It is dangerous to authentic civilization.
Dear Margaret, you got it, as usual. Yes, it’s a civilizational threat. Yes, the thinking is confused—it cannot do without cognitive dissonance, the conflict between the basic notions of good and evil and support of savagery. And the psychological violence, approving physical violence without much thought, is part of it, a persona whose moral outlook is grotesque but unaware of its own self-exposure. There is no affect—it’s bloody indifference that reminds one of Weinreich’s “Hitler’s Professors” and Arendt’s “banality of evil.” I just hope all that and more can be seen there, and your reaction supports my hope.
I really like your fascinating slant rhymes: Jews/loose; little/Hitler; faulty/revolting; chambers/changes. I wonder if they are there to symbolize the kind of “off” thinking you portray here. The last two stanzas, beginning with “It’s close. It is here.” introduce exact rhymes. — introducing a change?
“Civilized” is a great title. It reminds me of something G.K. Chesterton said; I don’t recall the exact context, but I believe he had been asked why he liked a particular thing better than another. “Because civilization,” he said, “is better than savagery.”
Dear Cynthia, I appreciate your approval of those slant rhymes. They do change for the reason you guessed: the speaker becomes tired of own hypocrisy and firmer in expressing savagery and its support, and thus becomes more exact in both substance and form. I generally prefer slant rhymes.
No doubt about savagery vs. civilization. Of course, the “civilized” speaker turns that contrast inside out. Thank you!
Antisemitism was religiously based in the past; later on it became economic when Jews did very well in capitalist enterprises and provoked envy. In the nineteenth century antisemitism was linked with nationalism, which had become a dominant force in Europe, and which rejected any minority groups that did not totally conform to a national template of identity. The twentieth century saw it take a racial form, where Jews were hated for their unchangeable ethnic and genetic heritage. Sometimes all of these things were mixed.
Today, the hatred is primarily ideological. By this I mean that antisemitism is now rooted in violent anger and resentment over the fact that Israel does not fit an acceptable left-liberal narrative of how a “modern and progressive” society should operate. Religion is no longer an issue for many people, everyone is a capitalist, intense nationalism is passé, and genetics has settled down into just another empirical science. The hatred is now based on political opinion and bien-pensant conformism.
Are there exceptions? Sure. There are still some antisemites who reject the Jews on religious grounds, and other who are envious of Jewish prosperity, or who accuse them of double-loyalties, or who have a Nazi-like hatred of their genes. But they are not the main sources of the current wave on antisemitism that has swept the liberal-left in both Europe and the United States.
The issue today is ideology, pure and simple. Left-liberalism demands a fideistic totality to its social and cultural beliefs. You must believe and support whatever the left promotes as morally correct and politically required. Any deviation, any heresy, any questioning or criticism, is met with outraged shock and retaliation. The state of Israel, surrounded by a sea of fanatical enemies, is considered by the liberal left as an abomination because it rejects political notions and beliefs that would be suicidal for Israel as a nation.
What are those “political notions and beliefs” that Israel rejects? Here are the key ones:
No state is allowed to be rooted in an ethnic heritage or a specific religion.
No state may have a core elite and ruling class based on such heritage and religion.
No state may establish laws or codes or protocols that favor one class of citizens over any others.
No state may be closely allied to Western ideas, Western habits of thought, and Western standards of behavior and productivity.
AND MOST IMPORTANT: No nation may defend itself by killing and devastating those nonwhite populations that dare to attack or terrorize it.
Israel is a real nation, rooted in the blood and sacrifice of its soldiers, its long history in its territory, and its conquests in battle. A real nation like Israel does not worry about moralistic chickenshit like the five notions that are listed in the preceding paragraph. It defends itself in whatever way it sees fit. In other words, Israel refuses to commit suicide and become another Levantine sandpit of squalor, like its neighbors, and it does not concern itself with the Categorical Imperatives of left-liberal piety.
This is why antisemitism has been revivified. It is why even many Jews (in name only) are part of the massive pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian protests, and why many stupid left-wing Israelis are in the streets attacking Netanyahu. These are people who cannot bear the idea that Israel is telling the high priests of left-liberalism to screw off. For these people left-liberalism is a religion, and violations of religious belief are sinful and damnable. Left-liberals today are as mindlessly fundamentalist as Southern Baptists.
Israel is a slap in the face to left-liberal ideology. Israel is showing the rest of the West how we are going to have to fight in the very near future. It is successfully crushing fanatical enemies who want to wipe it off the map, and is not apologizing to the chorus of NGOs and mass media outlets and corrupt U.N. agencies that are in a state of pearl-clutching rage about it.
I was in Manhattan on October 7, 2023. I was a witness to the mass celebrations and cheering crowds of students, faculty and other jackasses who were in the streets screaming their joy for the Hamas assault on Israel. And this was days before Israel made any military response to the atrocities. I couldn’t believe the level of ghoulish Schadenfreude that was displayed!
One of my Jewish colleagues was in a state of near shock. As we sat in the office, he broke his silence and said this to me “I used to be Jewish and left-liberal. Now I’m just Jewish.”
I knew then that Israel was the only hope for fighting off the barbarian hordes massed against the West.
Dear Joseph, I am greatly flattered that my poem has led to your astute comment. Certainly, all the reasons for the resurfacing of Jew-hate that you list, and more, are valid. They are also nothing new: progressive or conservative, educated or uneducated – that changes only the form not the substance of hate. What you observed in Manhattan, the elation of unrestrained antisemites, transports us straight to the streets of 1941 Lviv (Lvov), Ukraine, when the local population’s barriers for savagery were lifted by the Nazis and their allies, and the streets of 1946 Kielce, Poland, – after the war – when the locals felt that those barriers had not existed. What is relatively new is the denial of Jew-hate, which is of the same nature as Shoah denial. As the Nazi genocide was justified by common good and social justice, so is today’s terror. And, as you rightly note, the left-liberal that I call progressive as meant by the Soviet terminology, fellow-travelers, are particularly well adept in using the communist-Soviet-KGB conceptual apparatus, complete with “anti-colonialism,” “anti-racism,” “anti-Zionism,” and “freedom-fighters,” all the misnomers with inverted or disguising meaning. Nonetheless, despite my generally pessimistic outlook, a hope remains when, thanks to people like you, Jews can see that they are not alone. It is especially important for those of us who, like that colleague of yours, have been misled by the false progressive slogans and the assimilationist desire to be “like everybody else.” Thank you very much for your moral clarity and speaking out.
Michael, I’ve been thinking about this poem since it came up yesterday trying to figure out what I could possibly say either in terms of the crafting of the poem or the substance of the poem, or both. I realize that I’m tongue-tied (rare for me) in the face of a poem which lends voice and character to a Western type who I now recognize as a mortal enemy. Your work is effective to the point of making me feel both enraged and deeply threatened. I think I need not focus too much on the mechanics of the poem when you have obviously used it with such skill as to elicit a visceral response. Your craft is solid. So are your insights and morals.
As for the “enraged” and “deeply threatened” parts… how many hours do you have? I’ll give you the short version. Rage because these people who are antisemitic and antizionist (it’s really the same thing, despite their philosophical and linguistic gymnastics) base their hatred on false facts and the bullying of the masses. I’ve repeated this too many times, but it bears mentioning. Jews constitute only .2 percent of the world’s population. They… we.. are a tiny minority when faced with Muslims, who are 26% of the world’s population and growing faster than any other group. Jews are outnumbered 125 to 1 on the world stage, at the U.N., in the media. There are 22 Arab countries. There are 56 Muslim majority countries. There is only 1 Jewish country the size of New Jersey. And yet it is always Israel and the Jews who are demonized. Called colonizers and racists. Really? The population that already has 56 countries is calling Jews “colonizers” for trying desperately to hold onto their little sliver of land?? Racists? Do they realize that 60% of Israelis are NOT white? That Israel is the only country in the Middle East where gays are respected? And when we’re talking about Israel’s enemies, we must also remember that this is not a Muslim vs Jewish thing. There are plenty of Europeans and Americans who are not Muslim but who despise Jews because it fills some kind of sick psychological need to have a whipping boy. And the Jews, more than any other group are history’s whipping boys.
Cite history to them. Evidence. DNA. Archaeology. Show them Ottoman land deeds or synagogues from the 8th century or graves from the 13th or 15th or 18th century and they don’t give a damn. They’ll say it’s faked or manufactured. Or irrelevant. They’ll say Jews aren’t really Jews but usurpers of the Jewish identity. They’ll launch into their nonsense that “Jesus was Palestinian” or that Palestinians built their first mosque 5000 years ago and they’ll cite history that never occurred and THEY DON’T CARE. They have a narrative they will kill for. This is not an information war, it is a propaganda war. The people who hate Israel and the Jews (inseparable), are only too happy to twist the truth, to stage photo ops, to lie about blood libels, to rewrite history and destroy archaeology while doing so. It is a manifest injustice and I fear for the souls of such liars, historical revisionists and Stalinist propagandists.
As for feeling deeply threatened… When a person speaks the truth over and over again and is punished for it, when one shows why Jew-hatred is a clearly foreseeable consequence to policies (consider Mamdani in NYC) and people laugh at you, when you see Hollywood stars promote boycotting Israel (for what?) because it’s the popular thing to do, when you see clergy and congregants alike forced to take firearm classes to learn how to defend themselves because their police won’t do it, when you see students terrified of wearing a Jewish star or asserting support for the only Jewish country in the world, when you see high school students create a swastika for the benefit of adoring social media… well… how can one not feel threatened? I would question the sanity of anyone who is Jewish who thinks everything is just fine. This is 1938 and Krystallnacht is already here. Now we wait to see what comes next.
Dear Brian, we clearly sing in unison, and I could sign off on every word you said. Never in history there has been another group that is so universally and viciously hated—for having no state and for having it, for being rich and being poor, for being capitalist and communist, for being too smart —and so stupid as to relinquish their holiest Temple Mount to their conquered enemies who only hated more, continuing to use their ugly colonialist structure there to incite pogroms and terror. There is no end to the same delusional line of sacrificial thinking that led Dayan to another “land for peace” attempt, to be repeated over and over again—for nothing in return except for more terror and more lethal demands from the “civilized” international community of savages.
As so many have noted, ourselves included, we are dealing with the conflict between savagery and civilization. These ultimately are the forces represented by antisemites, the former —and Jews and their noble gentile allies, the latter. It is painful to observe the Orwellian inversion of this equation, when savagery pretends to be civilization, claiming moral superiority based on support of sadistic murderers, rapists, and torturers, who have hardly had historical equals. And so, our Kristallnacht is always here, latent today—manifest tomorrow. As Galich, whom I have quoted, said, “Our train is departing for Auschwitz / Today as it does every day.” Thank you for your kind words.
Joseph and Brian have said already everything I would have wanted to say. “Some of my best friends are Jewish” just doesn’t cover it. As a matter of fact and circumstance, all of my best friends are Jewish, even though some of them are weak-kneed liberals.
I truly appreciate your comment and humor, turning an antisemitism-denial cliche into a statement of support. It is unfortunate that the desire to make the world better, wrongly understood even if sincere, has misled so many into progressism. Thank you, C.B. Anderson.
A true story:
I am so frightened
All my family dear
Were Jews and Nazis.
Why am I still here?
Because perfect Love
He casts out all fear.
Happy Hanukah to everyone here who enjoys the celebration of light.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Dear Yael,
גם לך!
Michael, thanks for this well-crafted piece. It will strike a chord with nearly every Jewish person, and every non-Jew who is appalled by the pro-Hamas insanity. One consolation about these difficult times: liberal Jews (the weak-kneed that CB refers to) are finally being forced to confront the reality that no less than the rest of us, they are targets of the far left and the Islamists.
Dear David, that’s a consolation indeed, albeit rather weak—not only because that conversion concerns too few, but also because the non-Jewish world moves in the opposite direction: appeasement of Muslim Jew-hate. The consequences are as I implied in the poem: today’s massacre of Jews in an Islam-appeasing country.
So the death I wrote about has not waited to happen—in the country that well represents the poem’s persona. How many more should die for the world to get rid of its wishful thinking delusions?