23% of These People Are Probably Anti-Semitic

Rumors

I wonder if my ancestors in the shtetl ever dreamed that one day their progeny would be light-haired and light-eyed and really into rollerblading. (Who could have predicted rollerblading, really. Whomever it was would have had to have a great sense of humor.)

I wonder if my ancestors imagined that their descendants would live a privileged life in Los Angeles going to posh carnival-esque movie premieres sponsored by the Disney Company, a morally questionable multinational corporation founded by a man who was long-rumored to hate Jews (although from what I can tell he mostly just hated leftists and unions). 

I wonder what my ancestors would think if they knew that the books that made me fall in love with reading and thus precipitated my entire life's path would be written by a self-proclaimed anti-Semite, the author Roald Dahl. (To be fair I read them before the truth was widely known. But I should have guessed from THE TWITS.) 

I wonder if my ancestors could have pictured me with terror-induced insomnia at age ten, imagining that every overhead plane was a Nazi bomber coming to obliterate everything I held dear. (My ancestors shouldn't have let me read so much Holocaust fiction.)

I wonder if they thought the children of their children's children would stop worrying that people hated us and wanted to hurt us, that anti-Semitism would one day disappear. I wonder if they'd agree that Jewishness in diaspora might be inextricable from that feeling of being threatened, of sudden comeuppance, that heavy burden of history pressing down on little blonde children as they rollerblade along the Pacific Ocean. 

Theodore Adorno once said, "Anti-Semitism is the rumor about the Jews." It's also the story that we keep telling about ourselves. 

Another Day In Paradise

Paradise.  A place according to wikipedia where "existence is positive, harmonious, and timeless...in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness."  What a definition.  What a description.  Who wouldn't want to go to such a place?  I was lucky enough to live in paradise.  It lasted for nine years.

When we were nine years old and living in paradise,  Daniel Rubinstein was going on and on about some musician who I can't remember anymore and what  a really good guy he is and how he does so much for people.  I told him he was crazy, clearly, no one was doing more good for anyone than Phil Collins.  This guy wrote a song all about the homeless and was giving a lot of money from the song to the homeless. (I hadn't worked out the logistics of how that worked out, but I remember imagining Phil Collins waking the streets of downtown Chicago handing dollars to the poor, cold homeless.)

He also played at Live Aid in London and flew in the goddamn Concord back in time to Philadelphia to perform the same 7 songs on the same day.  Bob Dylan, my hero then and now, couldn't even manage to sing four songs without embarrassing himself and Phil Collins was able to do it on two continents in 24 hours.  As I told Daniel Rubinstein back the, "I don't even like the guy but clearly he's doing more good for people than anyone else.  He helps the homeless, he travels back in time to raise money for Africa.  Now that is a charitable man.  A very charitable man."  Daniel agreed.

But, Daniel Arnold couldn't take it anymore.  He finally burst in, screaming at us for even thinking that Phil Collins was a good guy.  "He's an anti-Semite," Daniel told us.  But how could this be?  How could an international pop star be an anti-Semite.  Was there any proof?

The proof, the proof was most heinous part.  According to Daniel, Phil Collins played a show in Milwaukee a few years back, and in the middle of the concert stopped a song to tell the audience, "I'll give a dollar to every Jew that leaves my show right now."

That was the end of Phil Collins for me.  For a man to say such vile things is horrendous, but to do so on a public stage in my city, a place I had never known the scourge of anti-Semitism to rear its ugly head, it shattered my sense of the world.  In that moment, my paradise was lost.  The world became an ugly place.

How could a popular man espouse such views and still be popular?  How was he allowed to put out records.  I dreamed of being a homeless man in downtown Chicago just so when Phil Collins gave me that dollar he made off the song I could tell him what a terrible person he was and that he should go back to England because we don't let anti-Semites come into the Midwest.

Then, Super Nintendo came out a year or so later and the whole Phil Collins stopped bothering me that much.  This isn't to say I forgot, you never forget, but it became less of a big deal for me.  But, anytime Phil Collins came up, I made sure to tell anyone and everyone exactly what type of a person this guy was.

Until my late 20s.  One night, I was with Daniel Arnold Phil Collins and his anti-Semitism came up.  We looked at each other and realized, this wasn't possible.  There's just no way an international superstar could offer a dollar to every Jew that left his concert in Milwaukee without the world knowing.

So the internets were consulted.  After two decades, Daniel and I discovered we were living a lie.  Phil Collins never did say those unforgivable things in Milwaukee.  He was probably too busy being a good man, handing out money to homeless men in Chicago.

But, Daniel had to get it from somewhere.  Apparently, allegations of anti-Semitism have long dogged Phil Collins illustrious career.  Stories of him asking Jews to leave his concerts go back as far as Peter Gabirel-era Genesis.  Supposed, he requested the Jews to leave in a show Manchester, then in Cleveland, and so on.

It became such an issue Phil Collins posted on his website in 2003 what can only be described as an open letter to the Jews.  He wrote,  "I have no idea how these rumors start but there is absolutely no truth in what you've heard at all.  The fact that Jewish people refuse to listen to my music because of this is very sad."  Very sad indeed.  

This rumor may have an origin.  Apparently, there was a low key British politician named Phil Collins and he hated the Jews.  I'm guessing he used his anti-Semitism to appeal to people during England's famous Winter of Discontent.  Who knows. Nothing makes people hate Jews more than winters so bad they get their own name.  So this guy runs off at the mouth and next thing you know, Phil Collins (the real one) is sad because Jews don't listen to his music anymore.  It goes to show you a butterfly flaps its wings and next thing you know, Phil Collins is an anti-Semite and three children are thrown out of their paradise and into an evil world.

Have we recovered?  I don't know.  I struggle to find the good in the world.  One Daniel lives in Germany because he had to travel to the source.  The other is an internets celebrity but is still so haunted he just spent two weeks in a mental rehab facility in the wilds of Pennsylvania.  
Phil Collins has been divorced three times.  One day soon, I hope we can get past all this and enjoy another day in paradise.