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Behind the Aegis

(54,875 posts)
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 12:19 AM Nov 8

(Jewish Group) Once again, I'm an outsider in America -- like liberal Jews always were

These last few weeks, I’ve been listening to The Cure’s excellent new album, Songs of a Lost World. Particularly in the last few days, its typically gloomy lyrics and brooding guitar work has provided an apt soundtrack to the news.

Listening to these now-aged rock stars reminds me of when I was a teenager, decades ago, hearing The Cure in their prime. Back then, they were the voice of all the misfits who didn’t belong in the mainstream society of the Reagan years — and I was definitely one of those. A nerdy, thin, Jewish, pre-gay intellectual, I had nothing in common with seemingly everyone else in my junior high and high schools. I didn’t go to football games, wasn’t trying to “get” girls, and didn’t celebrate Christmas.

Already, I was also aware that my politics, my entire worldview, was at odds with mainstream America. In 1980s Florida, people were patriotic, religious and conservative. Everyone, including me, made fun of gay people — Reagan’s press secretary made jokes about AIDS while his administration did nothing to find a cure for it. But not just gays. We made racist jokes, sexist jokes, jokes about “handicapped” people and, I guess we’d say now, R-word people with intellectual disabilities. In retrospect, it was a cruel time. But it was the only time I knew.

Now, of course, we face the possibility of a return to those years — which the once and future president has called the “great” America to which he would have us return.

more...

As it was, so it seems it will ever be.

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(Jewish Group) Once again, I'm an outsider in America -- like liberal Jews always were (Original Post) Behind the Aegis Nov 8 OP
Jews in America are facing a reality that has always been there. madaboutharry Nov 8 #1
I feel squeed between the far left and the far right. nycbos Nov 8 #2
Well done essay JustAnotherGen Nov 11 #3

madaboutharry

(41,371 posts)
1. Jews in America are facing a reality that has always been there.
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 07:25 AM
Nov 8

We found out that we have been merely tolerated. The belief that we were truly welcome in America and welcome in certain liberal circles was a mirage in our own minds.

We have once again been reminded that we our on our own. There is a reason that there are 28,217 righteous gentiles registered at Yad Vashem. The population of Europe in 1939 was 558,000,000.

One thing is becoming very clear, it is not only Jews who will suffer in this new culture of hate. The targets of the bullies and haters are many.

nycbos

(6,373 posts)
2. I feel squeed between the far left and the far right.
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 11:02 AM
Nov 8

Donald Trump and now the pro-Hamas activists on campus made me realize that I would've been one of the German Jews in the 1920s who didn't take the threat of Hitler seriously.

I don't know what would be a safe haven for me. And that includes Israel given the makeup of the current government. They want to turn the country into the Jewish version of Iran.

JustAnotherGen

(33,682 posts)
3. Well done essay
Mon Nov 11, 2024, 07:59 AM
Nov 11

We saw The Cure at MSG a few years back. I've been listening to the new album a lot too. But the classic "A Forest" is what I keep coming back to:

Into the trees
Suddenly I stop
But I know it's too late
I'm lost in a forest
All alone
The girl was never there
It's always the same
I'm running towards nothing
Again and again and again and again

*******
And here we are

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