Heartbroken WASP’s essay unleashes a vipers nest of anti-Semitic clichés

Published: 5 April 2018

Last updated: 5 March 2024

THE WASHINGTON POST published a personal essay by a woman who had two relationships with Jewish men fail and now no longer wants to date Jewish men, and a lot of people are very mad. The essay is rife with seemingly accidental anti-semitism, including a cocktail the writer is “determined” to create, named “A Jewish Man’s Rebellion,” which will be garnished with bacon. Oy vey, bubbeleh.

I was also mad about this shonda of an essay, and hurt by it, as the product of a half-Jewish union or “interfaith relationship,” as the writer repeatedly describes such marriages, in a way that makes them feel like some sort of aberrant mutation of acceptable behaviour, as opposed to a very normal thing that produced the majority of my friends and associates. I joked with friends online about it, snarking at the way the writer described herself:

But I’m less mad about this woman’s apparently heartbreak-induced anti-Semitism than I am that the essay was published by an editor who I can only assume was looking for hate clicks. The writer is a freelancer; I am, too. The life of a freelancer is basically endlessly pitching ideas in the hopes that one will be accepted and you will be a couple hundred dollars closer to making your rent that month.

To borrow an analogy from baseball, a sport I only vaguely understand, it’s like swinging at every pitch, no matter how bad it is, in the hopes that one will make it over the fence.

FULL STORY Don’t blame the heartbroken WASP for using anti-Semitic tropes — blame her editor (Forward)