Shalom Rav

7 Responses to ““Israel, Good Job!””

1. 1 boris furman January 28, 2010 at 3:55 am

   If you want to know Israel, watch Eretz Nehederet. Israelis love to watch this show every week. I wish this country had a show like Eretz Nehederet to poke fun at ourselves while telling painful truths.
   This is not bashing. It’s thinking.

   Reply
   • 2 B.BarNavi February 10, 2010 at 5:20 am

     *ahem*TDS/TCR*cough*

     Reply
2. 3 Eric Selinger January 28, 2010 at 5:12 pm

   As you know, Brant, I’m less troubled by the marketing that surrounds the IDF rescue operation than you are. The operation itself is so desperately needed that everything else seems quite unimportant by comparison.

   That said, this sketch makes me doubly proud. Proud of the rescue operation itself, and proud that Israeli culture produces this kind of biting, self-critical comedy.

   Quite frankly, this sketch does more to make me feel connected with and invested in Israel than anything I’ve seen or read in months.

   Thanks for putting it up. Without irony, “Good job, Brant!”

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3. 4 Kenneth P. Katz January 29, 2010 at 2:07 am

   I don’t think that this skit is “Israel-bashing”, but there is certainly a self-hating Israeli left just as there is a self-hating American left (e. g. Howard Zinn).

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4. 5 Eric Selinger January 29, 2010 at 3:19 am

   I love that adjective, “self-hating”! It always makes me think of this poem by the great Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska:

   In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself

   The buzzard never says it is to blame.
   The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean.
   When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
   If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.

   A jackal doesn’t understand remorse.
   Lions and lice don’t waver in their course.
   Why should they, when they know they’re right?

   Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
   in every other way they’re light.

   On this third planet of the sun
   among the signs of bestiality
   a clear conscience is Number One.

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5. 6 Elaine Waxman January 29, 2010 at 8:38 pm

   Eric,

   Thank you for that posting from one of my favorite poets. I’m very fatigued from being called unpatriotic if I question the actions of my country (because I love it and I want to do better) and being called a member of the “self-hating Jewish left” because I question troubling actions of other fellow human beings, regardless of whether I share religious and communal ties with them. I prefer to try to be a person of conscience who tries to speak out even when it is inconvenient. I don’t alway succeed in living up to what I hope are my highest values, but I would be honored to have half the gumption of Howard Zinn to challenge conventional thinking. May his memory be a blessing.

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6. 7 Manal Abbas January 30, 2010 at 8:54 am

   I love that show. It brings the side of Israel that not every Israeli is willing to admit.

   Reply

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