threats every year. A 2002 ADL survey indicates that negative attitudes toward Israel and a belief that Jews have too much influence on U.S. Middle East policies are now driving anti-Semitic beliefs in America. This can only have increased, since the disastrous Iraq war is connected in many people’s minds with Jewish neoconservatives and Israel’s interests. Mearsheimer and Walt’s recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which mistakenly lays the blame for the Iraq war almost entirely on the Israel Lobby, can only worsen the situation. American Jews are right to be concerned with anti-Semitism worldwide, but wouldn’t it make sense to move away from an obsession with France and focus more on Germany? Most importantly, focusing on foreign antiSemitism should not blind us to our own problems.
“The world is in a miserable state and just for spite, we ought not to cry about it. Just to spite them, there’s going to be laughter.” —Sholem Aleichem
The Sholem Aleichem Bobblehead Doll $18 plus $6 shipping. www.jewishcurrents.org (212) 889-2523 January-February, 2008
Robert Lovitt
friday afternoon the jewish tailor’s shop rue laurier i stepped into the usual clutter unclaimed pants phone numbers brown forgotten plants yiddish books on the counter feeble overhead lights dusting the beige walls the stooped tailor (who had school-boyed me because my jeans all wore thin in the crotch) wasn’t there “abe’s got a cold” his wife explained contemplating the broken zipper on my winter coat her voice incredulous repeating my request “you vant i should fix it right now?” that she should drop more important piece work to mend my coat then snatching it from my arms as if it were a baby held by a man who couldn’t hush its crying from the ancient sewing machine berating me for having to change the color of the thread her foot on the pedal scowling at the coat which wasn’t worth her time yet walking up to me a few minutes later smiling and saying i could have it for free laughing and adding — “or for the price of a coffee” while i fumbled with my wallet insisting she at least take the dollar bill i held out her taking it and breaking the embarrassed silence shooing me “so go already — time is money — i have more important things to do than to talk to you all day” she headed back to her waiting machine adding in an entirely different voice: “good shabbos” as i turned and stepped back outside onto the sidewalk —filling with snow. Robert Lovitt has had fifty-four years of experience at being Jewish — in this lifetime, that is. He studied poetry writing while working as an apprentice to poet Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University. His poems have appeared in magazines such as Christian Science Monitor, The Phoenix, Jewish Frontier, Jewish Spectator, and the Shambhala Sun. For information about his book of poems, “daily basis,” contact him at dailybasis@comcast.net.